I know I'm late to replying to this, and I don't want to comment on the rest of the post, but this is blatantly false: > And because the actual academics- the

I know I'm late to replying to this, and I don't want to comment on the rest of the post, but this is blatantly false: > And because the actual academics- the individuals teaching- do not in practice make any difference whatsoever (eg US News rankings depend on student SATs, not staff PhDs), they are increasingly devalued in the equation. Have a look at how the US News ranking is calculated here (SAT scores are only 7%): https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-... Many of those components directly depend on academic merits, e.g. the peer reputation. Many other rankings (especially international ones) have a large portion of the index based on research, for example having a nobel prize winner increases your score quite dramatically. There are reasons why the ivy league schools + MIT, Cambridge, Oxford ... are at the top of international rankings, and it's not the quality of the housing.