<p>Noob:</p>
<p>USNews is a not an institutional authority on what determines educational quality. Even if there were a competitive ranking war, who says money is being invested in context that pertains to improving undergraduate quality?</p>
<p>Just because a school improves it’s brand name image by investing their institutional resources in USNews criteria doesn’t mean that those criteria pertain to undergraduate quality (thus making society a better place) An institutional can invest in it’s public brand name image, but how does society in turn deal with competitive reckless spending among higher education because they are jockeying to be #1 in the world stage? </p>
<p>While I am not totally dismissing Adam Smith’s invisible hand theory, I believe that money could be more wisely invested in measures deemed absolutely promising by academic industry heads themselves. Not indicators deemed necessary by some new sources like USNews. I believe any resources invested could bring improvement to society as a whole. My question is what is this investment motivated by and are the investments relevant to undergraduate education? </p>
<p>Spending and investing in resources such as student-faculty ratio, faculty resources, student selectivity, etc… all ideals or criteria championed by a for-profit journalism company in my opinion - not a smart idea. Especially since these USNews criteria s has no scientific evidence supporting it’s assertion that these are key indicators or instruments of a good undergraduate education.</p>
<p>It is the fact that competitive ranking wars drains unneccessary funds for more worthy projects like curing cancer, investing in student’s futures, and giving back to the community. It is here that the opinion of 568 Group, you, and me differ :(</p>