How College Rankings Are Going Global (and Why Their Spread Will Be Good for Higher Education)

Abstract

It would be hard to overstate just how contentious rankings of U.S. colleges and universities have become in recent years. As editor of the U.S. News & World Report college guides in the mid-2000s, I became accustomed to a steady stream of college presidents and admissions officials visiting the magazine’s Washington, DC offices to complain about the magazine’s influential college rankings. Some thought outsiders—especially journalists—should not be ranking colleges at all. Some took exception to one or more aspects of the methodology used to calculate each college’s standing. Others insisted that if only their own data had been properly tabulated by the magazine, their ranking would be higher. Outside the magazine’s offices, of course, those that fared well in the rankings often trumpeted the results on their Web sites.