‘U.S. News’ Unranks 10 Colleges (for 2 Months)

U.S. News & World Report has “unranked” 10 colleges for errors in the material they provided for rankings. However, the punishment of the colleges only lasts until the next ranking list is released, which will be this fall.

The colleges punished include Columbia University, which already announced that it is skipping the next rankings as it investigates allegations that its data were, on several points, false.

The other colleges dropped from the undergraduate Best Colleges category are:

• Northland College, which said its 2020 graduates’ average federal debt was $22,615. It revised that to $31,143.
• The State University of New York at Morrisville, which originally reported its overall six-year graduation rate for the 2014 cohort was 48 percent and its Pell Grant graduation rate for that same cohort was 39 percent. The university recently told U.S. News that the correct overall graduation rate was 38 percent and Pell Grant graduation rate was 29 percent.
• Western Illinois University, which said that 55 percent of its 2020 graduates had federal debt at graduation. Actually, that figure was 88 percent.
• Whitman College, which reported that the average federal debt of 2020 graduates was $4,854 and that 25 percent of 2020 graduates had debt. The correct figures were $17,298 and 37 percent, respectively.
• Villanova University, which reported its average 2021 need-based grant was $51,739. The correct figure was $40,323.