Not idiocy, limited experience. The target audience for these rankings is high school seniors and their parents. When you're 17/18 years old you don't have a

Not idiocy, limited experience. The target audience for these rankings is high school seniors and their parents. When you're 17/18 years old you don't have a lot of experience with judging the merits of higher education. This is a major decision that is (generally) only made once & few people will bother switching to another school after enrolling. Compare this to any other purchasing decision that is made in life. If you buy the wrong cellphone, you've got 30 days to return it and, worst case, you need to wait 2 years before you can upgrade. Even a car, which is a 4-6 year purchase, will be done multiple times so you can learn from the experience. Even houses, with 20-30 loan repayments, can be sold. The only other things you can do at this age that are as significant are joining the military & having a child. Both of which, arguably, have far more transparent and well understood pros & cons.