The methodology and results of the various college rankings are under intense scrutiny (look no further than our own threads dedicated to specific college rankings). Today I came across this article that looks into how a case of rankings fraud led to a positive outcome.
Temple University was rocked by a rankings scandal in 2018, when it became clear that Moshe Porat, the dean of Temple’s Richard J. Fox School of Business and Management, had knowingly provided false data to U.S. News for years in a successful effort to climb the rankings. Temple’s online master of business administration soared to No. 1—until the scheme was exposed. U.S. News temporarily unranked the program, the U.S. Department of Education hit Temple with a $700,000 fine and Porat was convicted of fraud.
Since then, Temple has worked hard to restore its reputation. In the aftermath of the scandal, officials imposed universitywide changes to how it handles facts and figures, establishing a Data Verification Unit within the Ethics and Compliance Office in 2019. Now any data produced by the university goes through a phalanx of dedicated fact-checkers, whether it’s for a rankings evaluation or an admissions brochure.
Unfortunately not all other scandal-hit schools took a similar approach to correct the situation. The article also touches upon 2 other scandals involving Columbia and U. Southern California.
It also highlights a major problem that has been discussed at length in the forums, namely what verification mechanism is in place for the information submitted by schools. Can that really be trusted 100%?
U.S. News also did not respond to specific questions about if or how it verifies that information submitted by institutions to be used for ranking purposes is accurate. A spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed , “U.S. News believes that data transparency and internal accountability practices by educational institutions are good for those institutions and good for consumers.