@PurpleTitan I feel like you’re cherry picking data points.
In 2012, Forbes ranked Chicago 4. Now on Forbes, Chicago is ranked 20, and last year it was ranked 24. Duke is ranked 22 this year and was, in prior years, ranked at 104. This is at best, inconsistent. At worst, it is laughable. Brown above MIT? Come on.
Meanwhile the US News rankings have had little movement since 1983. The public universities rankings have deteriorated greatly, but this is also because they’ve been so heavily defunded by local state senates. Meanwhile, Chicago was ranked 6 in 1983, and is now ranked 4, in a three way tie, which really suggests a position of 4 - 6. So there has hardly been any movement in the rankings, except to show some brutal realities where universities like Illinois and Michigan have been attacked by their state governments. There is little wonder why people pay little heed to Forbes.