The U.S. News College Rankings Are Out. Cue the Rage and Obsession.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Last edited Tue Sep 24, 2024, 09:08 AM - Edit history (1)

Source: New York Times

The U.S. News College Rankings Are Out. Cue the Rage and Obsession.

Every year, U.S. News & World Report publishes rankings that often change very little, though they draw attention and frustration from universities and applicants.


Princeton University led the rankings -- again -- among national universities. An Rong Xu for The New York Times

By Alan Blinder
Sept. 24, 2024, 12:01 a.m. ET

After months of tumult on American college campuses, relative stability in one realm returned on Tuesday, when U.S. News & World Report published its oft-disparaged but nevertheless closely watched rankings. ... Many top schools held the same, or similar, spots they had a year ago.

Among national universities, Princeton was ranked No. 1 again, followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard. Stanford, which tied for third last year, fell to No. 4. U.S. News again judged Williams College the best among national liberal arts colleges. Spelman College was declared the country's top historically Black institution.

Few franchises in American higher education are as contentious as the U.S. News rankings. Over the decades, their publisher has faced trouble with manipulated data, complaints about murky methodologies, accusations of revenge and the foundational question of whether it is appropriate to rank colleges.

To U.S. News, which retired its print newsmagazine in 2010, the rankings are a bastion of its largely bygone influence. They are also a source of millions of dollars each year, as universities pay licensing fees to promote how they fared. U.S. News, which insists that its business relationships with schools do not affect rankings, contends that it is performing a public service by distilling a chaotic collegiate marketplace for weary consumers.

{snip}

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/24/us/us-news-rankings-colleges.html

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Hat tip, WTOP

https://wtop.com/education/2024/09/where-are-the-best-colleges-in-the-us/

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges?srcusn_pr

https://news.google.com/search?forbest+colleges+us+news&hlen-US&glUS&ceidUS%3Aen

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The first fourteen schools are private. All but three are in the northeast. All have tuitions from $62K to $71K.

Finally, at position number fifteen, a public school, UCLA, shows up. In-state tuition is $14K.

The bargains of the bunch start at number 27, UNC--Chapel Hill. In-state students can attend UNC for $9,003.

In-state tuition at UFlorida, tied for number thirty, is $6,381.

[Dr. Shepper]

1. My daughter (8th grader) recently

Showed interest in Stanford and MIT so I looked up the tuition and nearly had a coronary. The cost (>60k/yr) is simply unmanageable for middle class and below salary. It’s another mortgage but paid off in almost a tenth of the time.

[Elessar Zappa]

2. Those institutions do give out scholarships to people who can't afford it

so if you’re daughter does excellent in high school, she may be able to attend without breaking the bank.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. I knew an engineer who went to Northeastern.

It has a school, work, school, work routine that makes attendance affordable. I didn’t look at the list for engineering schools, but I’m sure it’s somewhere below MIT.

I see a list in Forbes years ago showing where CEOs had gone to school. Not every CEO hung around for all four years. A lot of the schools would be several pages back in the USNWR list.

And good morning.

[Lucky Luciano]

7. Yeah actual tuition paid is a function of income.

[yardwork]

8. If your state has good state universities, consider them.

I was fortunate to be able to attend a highly ranked private schools, for the simple reason that it was affordable at the time. It no longer is affordable.

My kids, however, attended excellent state universities. It simply didn't make sense for them to take out huge college loans and struggle with that debt.

As others say, if your income is low enough, your daughter might receive grants or scholarships. If they offer her loans, though, think carefully about the return on investment.

[Roy Rolling]

4. My Daughter, years ago

She had the same dream, I had the same coronary. She worked hard and was accepted, graduated, and has sufficient skills to navigate life on her own terms. Her friends went on to be CEOs, she is an in-demand computer engineer.

MIT is a good school, but all universities now are out of their freaking minds with tuition and costs.

[Redleg]

5. And university administrators strive to move their institutions up the rankings

I am a graduate of state universities (B.S., M.S., and Ph.D) and a professor at a state university and have seen how much these rankings seem to matter to our over-paid college presidents and other administrators.

The US News methodology has always favored universities with large endowments and that probably won't change. I do appreciate that they also address "affordability" and other such factors that might appeal to the average applicant, since we all can't afford to send our kids to the elite schools.

[Hugin]

9. Oh, yay. The sclerotic usnews list of colleges is out.

[lostnfound]

10. Income under $150Kfree tuition at Columbia; under $85 free at Harvard... etc.

https://www.ivycoach.com/the-ivy-coach-blog/ivy-league/do-ivy-leagues-offer-financial-aid/

The endowments are making it possible.