I think one of the keys issues is the US News ranking criteria. US News took the easy way out with respect to two significant components of the score [1]. - E

I think one of the keys issues is the US News ranking criteria. US News took the easy way out with respect to two significant components of the score [1]. - Endowment per student - bonus points for amassing the largest treasure per fewest students - Selectivity - bonus points for excluding people before they come in which has no bearing on the effectiveness of the school itself in educating Also a large percentage weight is given to academic peer ratings of the schools prestige which itself is a feedback loop of when US News used to reward pure selectivity (i.e. lowest acceptance ratio per applicants). The endowment component of the score should be capped so as not to reward stockpiling. An additional component of the score should be based on the student body of the school system (higher # of students in the school system is better) should also encourage the development of systems of universities (i.e. multiple campuses. The UC School System would rank much higher - as well as it could lead to the development of Harvard/Yale/Princeton/Cornell/Stanford/etc. School Systems. Interesting piece - How to Game the College Rankings https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2014/08/26/how-northeastern-gamed-the-college-rankings/ https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2014/08/26/how-northeast... [1] https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-...