The U.S. News rankings are the kind of consumer-oriented evaluation that is pervasive and popular in American culture but that reverses the natural order. They're supposed to rank us . Since the U.S. News rankings began in 1983 as a survey solely of the reputations of colleges and universities, the magazine and the schools have been engaged in what politely might be called a vigorous discourse about them. That favors easy colleges, he claims. Stone says that giving schools points for alumni giving skews the rankings toward those private colleges that have well-staffed development offices.
Colleges are especially distressed that the rankings matter.
Annoyance at the rankings is partly a mask for fear that a bad ranking will lead to a drying up of applications, and perhaps also of alumni contributions, government funding, and attractiveness to faculty. The rankings are an intrusion, in other words, into the serene life of a president. They're one of many indications that universities are no longer the ivory-tower institutions they once prided themselves on being. Fifty years ago, total enrollment in American higher education, though increasing rapidly, was about a sixth of what it is today. Higher education boomed because it stepped beyond its traditional role as a center for pure study and into the economic world.