Rankings can demonstrate systemic issues that render them inaccurate: Opinion

Opinion

Reflecting on a recent scandal related to the US News World Rankings, Akil Bello discusses the issues with subjectivity and exclusivity surrounding postsecondary rankings. Bello explains that Columbia University provided fraudulent data to the ranking publishers and was “assigned competitive set values” by the editors, exposing how influential editor opinions are on rankings. Rankings further face issues surrounding their method and measurement, provide an advantage the wealthiest institutions, and tend to reflect editors’ values rather than an objective metric. Bello advises readers to be aware of how these issues and institutional influence can change rankings, which results in serious consequences for uninformed students if they make their admissions decision based on rankings. Chronicle of Higher Ed (Acct. Req.) Note: Archived stories may contain dead links or be missing source links.

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