Measuring “outcomes” is not only difficult, it is prohibitively expensive, particularly for tracking grads of the big Unis, such as Michigan, Berkeley, and ULCA (mentioned in the article).
Not…gonna…happen.
What “trouble” is US News in again? What does “aging” have anything to do with its “authority” (wouldn’t the opposite is true if anything?) Isn’t it still #1 in the “ranking business”? And IMO, 18% of the 2.2 million more or less buying into rankings is enough to justify the ranking as part of a magazine. If that issue featuring the rankings still sells better than other issues, I don’t see why they want to end it. Strangely, it’s those who seem to NOT buy into rankings are bothered most by rankings. Just ignore them. Better yet, use the info/data the magazine has gathered FWIW, disregarding the numbers attached to the college names.
@panpacific us news doesn’t have other issues anymore. It basically went out of business except for the ranking.
They are the equivalent of Consumer Reports. They provide information. You are free to slavishly adhere to them, cherry pick the information that is relevant to you and decide based on other criteria, or ignore them entirely. Nothing will happen if you ignore USNWR entirely if that is what suits your purpose. It’s as pathetic as the “I blame Harvard et al for the pressure on kids these days” - no one holds a gun to anyone’s head and forces them to apply to elites either.
The death of college rankings as we know them has been greatly exaggerated.
“Only by measuring what truly matters in a college — the actual outcome of a degree — rather than how many valedictorians a college recruits for its freshman class,…”
Really? Outcomes are all that matter? How about the experience while students are enrolled? I’d say that experience is hugely important.
“Outcome of a degree” is typically translated into dollars-and-cents for the resulting jobs. No thanks. I don’t measure the outcome of a college education by that any more than I measure the outcome of a family vacation that way.
“just 18 percent of students said magazine rankings were important”
Well, if the article is about a shift in priorities, as it appears to be, what percentage of students used to say magazine rankings were important in their decision?
Well, I tried to fix that myself…
The kids probably didn’t know what a ‘magazine’ was - they certainly have never read one 
“Well, if the article is about a shift in priorities, as it appears to be, what percentage of students used to say magazine rankings were important in their decision?”
Not really,
2014. 18.0%
2010. 16.7
2005. 9.1
2000. 9.8
1995. 7.9
The researchers of the survey and the author of Washington Post have the different view on this.
The original report for 2014 mentioned:
“the importance students place on rankings varies by income and institutional selectivity, with freshmen from the highest income quartile and those enrolled at the most selective institutions most likely to place great importance on college rankings in national magazines in the college choice process. By contrast, those from the lowest income quartile as well as first-generation students give greater weight to both living closer to home and college costs in deciding where to enroll.”
You can find each year’s report at
http://www.heri.ucla.edu/tfsPublications.php