The unofficial online home for fans of the University of Cincinnati Bearcats. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

Interesting article on the whole system.

Opinion: What Columbia's college ranking debacle reveals
Opinion by David M. Perry
Updated 5:51 PM ET, Wed September 14, 2022

(CNN)According to folklore (and the legendary author Neil Gaiman), the con man and riverboat gambler Canada Bill Jones was playing cards in Cairo, Illinois, one day, when a buddy came up to him and pulled him aside to say, "Don't you know this game is crooked?" Canada Bill replied, "I know it's crooked, but it's the only game in town."

That's how I felt when news broke that Columbia University acknowledged it had been submitting inaccurate data to US News and World Report for their annual college rankings. This revelation was brought to light by a math professor at the university, who found discrepancies between the data Columbia submitted for the ranking and reality. Since he made these discrepancies public, Columbia's ranking has dropped from #2 to #18.

Everyone in higher education knows that these rankings don't really measure true quality, that cheating is rampant among many different schools, and that even schools that report accurate data still try to game the ranking system.

MORE