“Due to its profound influence in the world of college admissions, U.S. News and World Report must reformulate its college rankings to account for privilege and economic inequality— especially in the wake of scandal” …
https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2019/4/19/grave-responsibility-u-news-world-report/
Here’s the problem, and Mel Elfin, the original genius behind the USNews ranking system, realized it from the beginning: any attempt to introduce clarity and objectivity to a college ranking system would so scramble the results that no one would take them seriously. To paraphrase his remarks at the time, “No one will take any ranking system seriously that doesn’t have Harvard at the top.” However, the one thing USNews does seem to get right - institutional wealth - is the key factor in which private, elitist, already well-regarded colleges and universities, offer the biggest discounts in tuition; which ones can afford the most diversity; and which ones generally attract the most applications from talented, middle-class students. IOW, it does a good job of following the money.
Ranking colleges based on “fairness” is a good and noble goal. So is having reasonably small class sizes and classes actually taught by professors instead of TAs. So is having excellent on-time graduation rates and ability to graduate with a job that pays enough that the graduate can support him/herself.
IMO, USNWR needs to trash the idea of one big list for universities and one for LACs in favor of multiple shorter lists. Such lists could include ranking top 50 colleges by majors, top 50 colleges for generosity in FA, top 50 in “fairness”, top 50 for international students, 50 top colleges for classes <25 students taught by professors, etc. etc. etc. This would be more useful to students and families, and might alleviate some of the prestige-seeking behaviors that make the application process so stressful.
other rankings systems exist; sadly the author didn’t mention them maybe because chicago was 13 instead of 3 
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/rankings/united-states/2019#!/page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/stats
To paraphrase Al McGuire, former b’ball coach of Marquette, ‘the best thing about first years (Frosh) is that they become second years (sophs)’ with a little less naivete and improved critical thinking skills. What would easily pass for a HS essay, will get a whole lot better over four years.
What exactly does this mean? What is ‘fairness’? How do you measure ‘fairness’?
I checked my kids school on the Times report referenced above and they underreport the COA by $20K!
@bluebayou “fairness” as used in that paragraph means that the ranking system would have to come up with some sort of algorithm that would produce a ranking that perfectly correlates with the writer’s subjective feelings. Good luck with that.
Lol. The author name checks us in the lead paragraph.
^^except the author is wrong. Besides 17-year-old kids, no one I know on CC uses USNews as the ‘last word’. Every post I have seen says it’s only a starting point for research.
But then typical of a Frosh: make a factually incorrect statement so you can better support your thesis.
Great article! The Social Mobility Index is a good start. Adding a Fairness (anti-corruption) factor to US News Rankings would greatly improve things!
It reads like something from a college freshman (which it is) - idealistic and non-actionable. We’re going to incorporate ‘public scandals’ into a rating system? How exactly does that work.
I actually find the ‘overall’ ratings of slight interest but not much meaning. It means a school had broad offerings that are good, but means nothing to a specific major. You want to major in Aeronautical Engineering? Top 20 Brown is obviously better than not-even-nationally-listed Embry-Riddle, right? Bzzzt.
Their ranking of Engineering, Business, and a few other areas are quite useful. Expanding the coverage of major-specific ratings would be much more useful.