It does not see to me that the ranking dropping from #40 to #47 is a big deal for an educated consumer, but a continued drop could begin to have a real impact. It is too bad that colleges have to play this game, but unless you are Harvard, Princeton or Penn, it seems that it has become a fact of life. Unfortunately, the fiction created by the rankings can become real, if parents and students treat it like it’s real.
In looking at the article you posted, it seems to me that it should not be that difficult or expensive for Lehigh to improve a little on almost every metric in the rankings. For example, how hard can it be to nudge up the percent of alumni giving from the current level of 22-24%? They just need to put a bit more effort into alumni outreach and relations and have more students calling alums. I think even if an alum only gives $10 or $20 it counts, so how hard can it be to raise that number to 1/3 of alumni giving something?
Improving graduation rates can be done by the university being quicker to identify students who are struggling and helping them get back on track before the student is hopelessly lost. Closer monitoring of class and recitation attendance and grades is not very expensive. Even paying students to tutor other students is not very expensive. Nudging the graduation rate up from 87% in 6 years to say 89% should be achievable.
Graduation and retention seem like it is more a matter of understanding who votes, and lobbying/marketing to them about how great the school is. Pretty sure that is what Northeastern does. It has gotten them a long way, and now they are attracting many more good students.