Like many "metrics", college rankings appeal to people because all you have to consider is a single number. One result is that it eliminates the anxiety associa

Like many "metrics", college rankings appeal to people because all you have to consider is a single number. One result is that it eliminates the anxiety associated with having to make a choice. You have a single axis and you just aim for the top without having to go through some process of research and prudential evaluation or worrying that you will regret your decision later (you might end up hating your school, but you can rationalize your bad experience by appealing to your school's rank to soothe the pain). Rankings also appeal to people who are excessively concerned with prestige, and these rankings, interestingly enough, generate and reinforce that prestige. The more people believe the ranking, the more it reinforces the perceived prestige. Above all, rankings appeal to human pride because they give us a tool by which to say "I am better than you" in an unambiguous manner, regardless of whether it is true. When people apply to graduate school, the situation is a bit different. You typically apply based on the people in the department you're interested in or the faculty member you want as an advisor. People aren't so concerned about rankings here as they are when applying to undergraduate programs. I am not denying quality is variable across schools. It is. Student bodies can also vary, and rankings can concentrate people of a certain mindset (for better or for worse) in one place. But rankings are not as meaningful as the numbers would seem to indicate. At the very least, the precision is far too high and too reductive (what's the difference between a school of rank 4 and 5? of 4 and 10?). The methodologies used also don't necessarily indicate what you think they do. There's a game these schools play, as this article touches on, to increase and maintain rank. My general feeling is that college education, and education in general, isn't that great, generally speaking, and the costs are preposterously high. There's too much of Dewey's influence. Classically, universities were not meant to be job training centers and glorified trade schools (we can debate how good they even are as job training centers). The reigning paradigm is being challenged, however, especially with rising tuition and conspicuous ideological presence on campus.