<p>Here’s how I see it. US news and world report’s college rankings are not an academic listing, but a prestige listing. One of the major factors in their evaluation is a ‘peer opinion’ poll where they ask deans of all the colleges which college is the best. This means that the colleges that are known by most of the deans in America (the ivies etc.) will get the most vote. Now, having a prestige list is actually pretty useful. You should use the USNews report simply as a judge of which colleges have the fanciest name. About Forbes - it is just crap. I mean, who cares about average debt or 4 year graduation rate</p>