One could challenge this line of reasoning…
The US News ranking started out (back in the 80’s), as pure academic peer ranking (i.e. as a measure of prestige within academia). Data was introduced after a couple years (in order to make it appear to be more objective). The problem is that the check for the accuracy of the formulas was whether or not HYP ended up at the top. So, one could argue that US News is actually perpetuating the use of prestige as a ranking methodology, not eliminating it, and it is doing so in a non-transparent fashion.
The interesting paradox associated with the US News ranking is that confirmation bias is arguably its biggest technical weakness, but also its primary reason for success. For research universities, it is really a measure of how closely another school matches the model established by HYP - irrespective of the absolute goodness of that model for undergraduate education.
Food for thought:
If US News accurately represents quality of undergraduate education, then why do research universities need to be separated from LACs?