College rankings—specifically the broad “best of” lists based on self-reported data—are more often a form of bragging rights than a reliable resource for prospective students. They have evolved into a game schools play against each other, with the prize being prestige.
Some college administrators have even faced jail time for trying to defraud the system to improve their institution’s rank. People have gone to such extraordinary lengths because these lists have measurable positive and negative—particularly financial—consequences for the schools.
Simply ranking among the top 25 schools can lead to a 6-10% increase in applications. Conversely, falling in rank, as Columbia University did on the U.S. News & World Report 2022-2023 Best National Universities list, can cause applications to drop and cost schools tens of millions of dollars.
Rankings are wielded in vastly different ways by different stakeholders: as a profitable product for publishers, a powerful marketing tool for schools, and a guidebook of sorts for prospective students and families. This would be a non-issue if all stakeholders were aligned on the primary purpose of rankings as an overview of the best schools based on a comprehensive list of factors reflecting an array of perspectives with rigorously tested statistical methodologies.
But they are not, and prospective students ultimately lose because of it. Concepts like “best” or “most valuable” are exceedingly challenging to quantify when there is so much variety among schools and student experience. Rankings with one-size-fits-all metrics based on limited data derived from flawed methodologies are not pursued by schools or assembled by publishers as a resource first and foremost, but rather as a product to sell. Former Stanford University President Gerhard Casper identified these shortcomings in 1996, and still, they persist.
However, some players, including Yale and Harvard, are refusing to participate in the game. As college rankings face a more high-profile reckoning, EDsmart explored why college rankings are—and always have been—a controversial practice.
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