Columbia University Drops in U.S. News Rankings, From No. 2 to No. 18

Columbia College was demoted from No. 2 to No. 18 within the influential U.S. Information & World Report school rankings on Monday, about eight months after a Columbia math professor accused the college of fudging some key statistics used within the rankings.

The downgrade comes after Columbia introduced that it was trying into the professor’s allegations and stated that it was withdrawing from the rankings. On Friday, the eve of the brand new rankings, Columbia stated that it had submitted knowledge on class dimension and the variety of school members with superior levels utilizing outdated or incorrect methodologies.

U.S. Information put the blame for the lowered rating on Columbia officers in a press release on Monday, saying that it “requires a high-level educational official to attest to any knowledge submitted by establishments immediately.”

Columbia apologized for the errors, saying, “We deeply remorse the deficiencies in our prior reporting and are dedicated to doing higher.”

Nearly yearly, U.S. Information broadcasts that it has discovered discrepancies in knowledge submitted by universities for the rankings. However Columbia, an Ivy League establishment, might be essentially the most storied and prestigious college in current reminiscence to be accused of offering incorrect knowledge.

U.S. Information has not stated whether or not the errors within the knowledge have been intentional or not, and Columbia stated they have been a outcome, a minimum of partially, of the “complexity” of the reporting necessities.

However the inaccuracies have created a notion of dishonest or dissembling round Columbia’s rating — and should have undermined the broader rankings system by revealing how straightforward it’s for universities to get away with submitting incorrect knowledge. After the maths professor, Michael Thaddeus, accused Columbia of submitting unhealthy knowledge, U.S. Information responded that it relied on the integrity of universities and didn’t have an impartial auditing system for the info.

Some consultants stated that there additionally appeared to be a vindictive component to Columbia’s demotion. In his unique critique, Dr. Thaddeus made a giant level of claiming that he believed Columbia’s rise within the rankings had been too fast to be true. He famous that the college ranked 18th in 1988 and vaulted to eighth in only one yr, largely as a result of the rankings methodology had been modified to rely extra on knowledge and fewer on a survey of fame amongst college presidents.

“I believe that’s precisely what was going to occur as soon as they realized they have been lied to,” stated Jed Macosko, a physics professor at Wake Forest College. Dr. Macosko is the pinnacle of AcademicInfluence.com, a rival firm of teachers and knowledge scientists who say they’re engaged on “an goal, non-gameable influence-based rating.”

“I want that U.S. Information weren’t so highly effective as a result of it makes for unhealthy dynamics,” Dr. Macosko stated. “So if the particular person in cost needs you to be No. 18, they’ll jiggle the U.S. Information rankings till you’re No. 18.”

U.S. Information stated that it was offering what it known as a client service “with the very best stage of integrity, for highschool graduates and their households to make selections.” Due to Columbia’s refusal to supply knowledge this yr, U.S. Information stated it had assembled knowledge from exterior sources for the brand new rating.

“We aren’t assured within the accuracy of the info Columbia submitted and didn’t use any prior yr knowledge,” U.S. Information stated. “For the 2022-2023 rankings, Columbia’s rank was calculated with knowledge from the U.S. Division of Training’s Nationwide Middle for Training Statistics, knowledge from the peer evaluation survey carried out by U.S. Information, the Faculty Scorecard and assigned aggressive set values for knowledge the place no third-party knowledge exists. Based mostly on these knowledge units, Columbia ranks No. 18 in nationwide universities.”

This yr, the rankings have been nonetheless predictable. Princeton ranked first, M.I.T. was second, whereas Harvard, Yale and Stanford tied for third. Final yr, Columbia was second to Princeton and tied with Harvard and M.I.T.

Columbia revealed on Friday that it had confirmed errors in two of the metrics questioned by Dr. Thaddeus: class dimension and the proportion of professors with the very best levels of their area.

“Whereas lots of Columbia’s undergraduate courses have lengthy had below 20 college students,” the college stated, “the prior methodologies used resulted in overreporting the variety of courses with below 20 college students and underreporting of courses with between 20 and 29 college students.”

On so-called terminal levels, Columbia stated that whereas the vast majority of school had at all times had the very best potential levels, the definition of terminal levels used within the U.S. Information rankings “in sure disciplines are completely different from Columbia’s necessities, leading to some overreporting.”