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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Come on people. USNews's change in ranking metrics is terrible need for middle class and upper middle class families who are already getting shafted by the current financial aid evaluation process at these colleges. With the outsized influence this ranking has in driving college behavior, colleges will now move towards filling more seats with Pell Grant recipients and compensate for that budget impact by recruiting more full pay students at the other end. That is really bad news for Average unhooked middle class families. Also now the one thing that have middle class families some edge in merit aid, namely scores and ranks is also being de-emphasized. This will move more dollars from merit to need based aid which is again terrible news for donut hole families[/quote]
This seems likely.[/quote]

I agree. With the potential caveat that US News might have taken things a bridge too far with this latest reconfiguring of its formulae. I feel like some of the top schools have been getting less and less focused on the rankings - finally realizing that it's crazy to base institutional practices on the arbitrary whims of a defunct magazine, in areas that have no demonstrable impact on student success or satisfaction - and that this big change will strengthen that trend. [/quote]

Hope you are right--though we feed the beast by using them/debating about them/relying on them. I do think the latest changes shift the focus and thus the definition of "best." As a consumer, I want a rating that tells me primarily about the quality of the institution and the experience a student will have there. By shifting the focus to social concerns, such as grad rates for Pell Grant students, it seems to me they serve a different audience, perhaps trying to define what is "best" for the community at large. As the parent of a kid who won't get a Pell grant, the rankings begin to lose utility as a measure of "best" (for me as a consumer, that is.) [/quote]

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