The annual U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges list has just been released, opening up a fresh channel for the ongoing debate over the value of and methodologies used in ranking institutions of higher education.
A focal point of the 2022 rankings is Columbia University, which dropped from 2nd to 18th place after being a mainstay in the top ten for several decades. The decision by U.S. News to demote the Ivy League institution came after the publication of a damning investigation from mathematics professor Michael Thaddeus wherein he outlined a deliberate fabrication of statistics meant to game the already flawed and disputed methodology. The scandal is notably the second in recent memory after a 2012 investigation uncovered similar tactics at George Washington University that went on for a period of decades. 1
....
- 1. A look at the other top-ranked schools in the 2022–2023 National Universities list with academic degrees in architecture offers a reflection of similar rankings, such as Best Architecture Masters (BAM) and QS World University Rankings. Princeton, MIT, and Harvard are in the usual vanguard, joined closely by Stanford, Yale, Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Penn, and CalTech at the top of a list that U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said otherwise “prioritize prestige and exclusivity.”