USNWR is a joke, seriously. What do you think USNWR’s business is - is it to provide objective educational advice to prospective college students or is it to sell magazines and advertising? I posit that their business is to sell magazines and advertising, and their college rankings is a great marketing tool towards that end.
Apparently, industry puts a higher value on Stevens graduates, as judged by the salary and ROI ranking of Bloomberg Business Week/Payscale’s survey “What’s Your College Degree Worth, 2018”. USNWR’s ranking is based primarily upon name recognition and anecdotal opinions of college administrators. The actual proof of the pudding in my opinion is the career progression of the students once they graduate, in this realm Stevens is significantly more highly represented - even higher than Princeton by the way:
https://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report/bachelors
In the group of engineering schools, Stevens graduates come in seventh in the US in terms of salary:
https://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report/best-schools-by-type/bachelors/engineering-schools
I would be the last person to suggest the salary and money should be the sole criteria for choosing where to go to school, however, these are objective hard data whereas USNWR’s ranking is highly subjective. I wouldn’t put too much credence into it.
Is a Princeton engineering graduate 4.1 times (49/12) as “good” as a Rutgers graduate? Is a Rutgers graduate 1.5 times as good as a Stevens graduate? Is a Princeton graduate 7.75 times as good as one from NJIT? I worked with an MIT graduate who was ineffective and a Rutgers graduate who was a stellar performer for example. I’ve worked with many stellar Stevens graduates as well. These numbers really are meaningless, seriously.
There are many college administrators - even some from those ranked highly on USNWR’s list - who believe that this type of ranking does a disservice to potential college applicants. In my career I have worked with great and not so great people who attended both well known and not so well known colleges. The person is the key, not the school they attend.