This is exactly it. A few of the business-world based rating systems (WSJ, Forbes), really like the idea not only of future income (vs cost), but especially how much a school raises their future income. They don’t see it as a social measurement, but as a pure $$ measurement. They would have no problem highly rating a school that turned millionaires into billionaires. But WSJ lists Towson as the 40th best school in the U.S. State school cost, low income students, who land good jobs.
3 Likes
Go Blue 
WSJ is behind a paywall, so I’m not familiar with details. Forbes has only a 15% weight on “return on investment”. Forbes calculates “return on investment” by comparing the median earnings of students attending the particular college to median earnings of high school graduates who do not attend college. This is obviously not a meaningful measure of how much attending a particular college boost’s a particular student’s earnings. It’s more a measure of which colleges have the largest portion of students pursuing majors and career fields associated with higher earnings (tech) and which colleges are selective enough to admit well academically qualified, motivated, and connected students.
I won’t get off topic and go in to a lot of detail about WSJ/Forbes methodology, but the point is the other rankings I’ve seen are also quite flawed. It’s not just an issue with USNWR. It’s more the whole concept of ranking colleges according to a formula using a bunch of arbitrarily weighted stats is flawed. The link I listed earlier in which professor Thaddeus discusses Columbia gaming USNWR expresses it eloquently. A quote is below.
No one should try to reform or rehabilitate the ranking. It is irredeemable. In Colin Diver’s memorable formulation, “Trying to rank institutions of higher education is a little like trying to rank religions or philosophies. The entire enterprise is flawed, not only in detail but also in conception.”
Students are poorly served by rankings. To be sure, they need information when applying to colleges, but rankings provide the wrong information. As many critics have observed, every student has distinctive needs, and what universities offer is far too complex to be projected to a single parameter. These observations may partly reflect the view that the goal of education should be self-discovery and self-fashioning as much as vocational training. Even those who dismiss this view as airy and impractical, however, must acknowledge that any ranking is a composite of factors, not all of which pertain to everyone. A prospective engineering student who chooses the 46th-ranked school over the 47th, for example, would be making a mistake if the advantage of the 46th school is its smaller average class sizes. For small average class sizes are typically the result of offering more upper-level courses in the arts and humanities, which our engineering student likely will not take at all.
College applicants are much better advised to rely on government websites like College Navigator and College Scorecard, which compare specific aspects of specific schools. A broad categorization of institutions, like the Carnegie Classification, may also be helpful — for it is perfectly true that some colleges are simply in a different league from others — but this is a far cry from a linear ranking. Still, it is hard to deny, and sometimes hard to resist, the visceral appeal of the ranking. Its allure is due partly to a semblance of authority, and partly to its spurious simplicity.
Perhaps even worse than the influence of the ranking on students is its influence on universities themselves. Almost any numerical standard, no matter how closely related to academic merit, becomes a malignant force as soon as universities know that it is the standard. A proxy for merit, rather than merit itself, becomes the goal.
2 Likes
A-Men!
Put them in a closet and wait for next year’s ranking. 
6 Likes
I think one useful bit of context is there were just far, far fewer kids going to four-year colleges back then.
In 1960, something like 700K students were going to enroll as freshman in four-year colleges, about 300K at privates. In 2025, I believe that was something like 3M total, 1M in privates.
This helps explain why lots of colleges got more selective since 1960, including many colleges that were not considered very selective at all back then.
Indeed, even as of, say, 1990, it was still just like 1.1M total, 400K private. There was tremendous growth over the next 20 years after that until 2010, when all this sort of peaked.
Nationally it is down since then, but at the more selective colleges, not so much, indeed applicants continue to grow at a reduced rate.
Yes, this is a lens on the same general effects. The base college-bound population increased a lot through 2010 or so, and then the applicant count for the more “national” colleges has continued to increase despite the base population peaking. This systematically lowered admit rates and increased selectivity measures like score ranges at a lot of colleges.
Admit rates to colleges like Princeton plunged, but also other colleges which might have been treated as “safeties” for kids with good numbers back in 1990, say, became “reaches” instead by 2025.
1 Like
I also just posted this in the LAC thread, but with mild modification it seems relevant here as well.
Depending on whether they actually go through with this, US News might well be overhauling how it classifies tech universities (and colleges).
Specifically, US News has historically used the Carnegie Classification system to divide up its different rankings. But Carnegie just overhauled the classification system in ways that could have profound implications for the structure of these lists in the future.
US News has this interesting note about this subject:
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/ranking-category-definitions
In February 2021, Carnegie released its final updates, called the 2021 update, to the categories, including the Basic system. U.S. News followed the Carnegie 2021 update for the fourth consecutive year in its 2026 Best Colleges rankings. Although the Carnegie classification has since implemented a new framework, we used the 2021 framework because it was the latest available at the time work began on data collection for the most recent rankings edition.
This seems to be implying they may be planning to use the new system going forward.
The relevance to this particular issue is the following.
As of 2021, tech-focused doctoral research universities like MIT and RPI were in the same category as, say, Harvard. Harvey Mudd is in the same category as LACs like Williams. And then colleges like Rose-Hulman were in Engineering at institutions without a PhD program.
For 2025, Carnegie has changed things such that all of institutions like MIT, RPI, Mudd, and Rose-Hulman are in the new Special Focus: Technology, Engineering, and Sciences category. Harvard is in Mixed Undergraduate/Graduate-Doctorate, and Williams is in Special Focus: Arts and Sciences.
The new Special Focus: Technology, Engineering, and Sciences category also got institutions like Caltech, CMU, Georgia Tech, Cooper Union, and WPI.
If US News actually incorporates the new system, this would really change things quite a bit. I actually think it makes more sense than the current system, understanding no system is really going to make a lot of sense.
But I could see it being controversial to “separate” those more tech-focused universities from other universities into their own ranking. Although controversy might be good for marketing, so maybe!
4 Likes
This will be interesting to see how it plays out. It looks like the designation applies to colleges where a majority of students graduate with a STEM degree. So some colleges just above the 50% threshold would get classified as tech-focused and those just under 50% would be classified in the standard track. If the math adds up, a school like UC San Diego would “just” qualify in the standard track with 47% of graduates STEM. A few more STEM majors and they move to the tech track. I wonder if some colleges may try to maneuver themselves into one track or the other.
That’s a very interesting question. Assuming US News implements this, there would be “good company” in both lists. Which would be better marketing for a UC SD or, say, Purdue?
I note if you would like to look up their current classification, you can use this resource:
UCSD and Purdue are currently in the Mixed group:
If you are interested in the details of the classification methodology, here is the Technical Manual:
The section on “Special Focus” classifications explains the general concept of this new category:
Special Focus: Technology, Engineering, and Sciences
o This includes institutions that award at least 50% of their degrees in academic programs focused on specialized sciences and mathematics, technology, and engineering. For more information, please see the 2025 CIP Code Map. These institutions are limited only to institutions whose award level focus is in the baccalaureate or higher categories.
The CIP Code Map they mention is available here:
One of the interesting nuances to all this, which could in fact be subject to some strategy if institutions so choose, is that sciences and maths can be either “generalized” or “specialized”, indicated by a 1 or 2 respectively in Column D. 1 is for Arts and Sciences, 2 is for Technology, Engineering, and Sciences, and again this particular classification variable is sorting sciences and maths into one or the other.
So, for example:
| 26.0101 | Biology/Biological Sciences, General |
|---|---|
is a 1. So is:
| 40.0501 | Chemistry, General | ||
|---|---|---|---|
But:
| 26.021 | Biochemistry and Molecular Biology |
|---|---|
is a 2.
Similarly, Mathematics, General, is 1, Applied Mathematics, General, is a 2, and so on.
OK, so if you have relatively more 1 than 2 majors in sciences and maths, you could reduce your count toward that 50% level, and maybe help keep you in the Mixed or Special Focus: Arts & Sciences categories. If you instead have relatively more 2 than 1 majors in sciences and maths, you could increase your count toward that 50% level, and maybe help put you in the new Special Focus: Technology, Engineering, and Sciences group.
1 Like
Yes, I’ve already fallen down this rabbit hole!
One interesting this is that Case Western is not currently being considered for technical status, however they do have over 50% of students as STEM majors (55% per their CDS). Your discussion about the “1” or “2” designation is interesting as CMU has more in the specialized category than Case does, so maybe that’s a reason why Case isn’t being considered for that classification.
At any rate, I do wonder if some colleges could play the game a bit. It might make sense for Case to play it and actually try to get the technical categorization since they could get the higher “rank” there. And I’d think UC San Diego may want to push their way to making sure they do NOT end up as a technical college.
1 Like
Just trying to catch up here. If a university is categorized in tech, will there not be a catch-all national universities category that includes both “tech” universities and “non-tech”? Instinctively, that feels wrong to me.
You are right, Case seems like an excellent example of an institution that could both calculate its marketing would be helped by moving into the Special Focus list, and could probably get there without a lot of large distortions of their academic offerings in substance.
I actually don’t know all the details of the coding scheme, but I wonder about things like offering minors-for-major (meaning things like Bio minors a Bio major is allowed to do), “concentrations” (so you get a Bio degree but it is indicated you did a concentration or such in some area), and so on. I wonder if using/not-using such alternatives to specialized majors could be a way to change your coding mix.
1 Like
So ultimately, US News can “map” its lists onto the Carnegie Classification system however it sees fit. But there is going to be a “problem” adding just MIT, say, and not Rose-Hulman, because in the new system they are both in the same category.
I note in any multi-dimensional system, this is really a choice of what you want to focus on. And here is their explanation of the change in focus:
Why were the Carnegie Classifications changed?
In 2022, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the American Council on Education (ACE) announced a collaboration to reimagine the Carnegie Classifications to ensure they better reflect the public purpose, mission, focus, and impact of today’s higher education institutions. Despite the evolution of many institutions of higher education and the ways in which Americans pursue postsecondary credentials, the classification system had not changed considerably since its first release in 1973.
Our goal was to make the classifications more representative of institutions’ missions and better reflect a variety of education pathways and student experiences. We were particularly interested in capturing the experiences of both institutions and learners that have not been reflected in previous approaches to the classifications.
As a part of this work, we recognized the need to establish a new methodology for the historical Basic Classification methodology—the most well-known and most-used component of the Carnegie Classifications. On November 1, 2023, we announced changes that are now reflected in the 2025 Carnegie Classifications.
What are the reasons for changing the Basic Classification?
Over the last few years, it became clear that the historical Basic Classification no longer captured the breadth of today’s postsecondary institutions, particularly the wide variety of institutional missions and organizational structures, and it did not always group similar types of institutions, which is the purpose of the Carnegie Classifications. Institutional leaders have told us that the framework, which examined institutions through the lens of the highest degree awarded, was too limiting and did not adequately describe the full scope of work taking place across their campuses. Additionally, given the use by policymakers, grantmakers, and others, there were incentives for institutions to change their mission or focus in order to change their Carnegie Classification, with the resulting efforts tending to be an over-emphasis on the highest degree awarded and not necessarily where an institution spends the majority of its time and resources.
We hope the revised classification structure, which includes a multidimensional look at institutions, will be more useful for those who use the classifications.
OK, so basically, since 1973 or so, people influenced directly or indirectly by the old system, including through the way US News divided up its lists, have been thinking in terms of top degree granted being the highest-level, most important distinction between higher education institutions.
Carnegie is adopting a new framework in which a different sense of an institution’s “mission” would be the top, most important distinction.
So I think if US News tracks this change, it will definitely take some getting used to, as the old way of thinking has dominated for like 50 years.
But my two cents is I think they have a point. Like, I personally think at least when it comes to undergrad choice, the sorts of things they are describing in terms of the college’s mission/focus are ultimately more important than whether or not they also have PhD students.
Which doesn’t mean whether or not they have PhD students might not still be something some people consider, as either a pro or con. But it won’t be considered the MOST important thing when choosing an undergrad program.
Which to me, at least, makes sense.
1 Like
I hope everyone here – which seems to be a subset of the more sophisticated parents w.r.t. college admissions – are of the opinion that the US News & World Reports rankings are, at best, directionally correct and mainly for amusement. We should help other parents and their anxious kids understand that.
The #4 ranked school is not meaningfully different than #1. Similarly, the #19 ranked school is not meaningfully different than #26 or #13. The #42 ranked school is not meaningfully different than #55.
The rankings could completely change with relatively minor changes in weighting. Just as the Harvard freshman class could completely change if the case files were read by the next set of Admissions Officers versus the original set of AO readers.
USNWR does this every year to generate revenue. If you go to their web page, they rank ALL SORTS of things: public high schools, private high schools, plus any number of crazy things.
6 Likes
Question, how do those new rankings relate to strange old ones like the fact that Cal Polys’ lack of PhD programs makes them “regional” rather than national. Is it the public aspect that differentiates them from the LAC ranking? I don’t know the actual numbers but if cal poly slo graduates more than 50% in STEM, would it now shift into the same new rankings space as Mudd and MIT? Or would it somehow stay “regional”?
Yale’s acceptance rate was 20% even in the 90s! Different world we live in.
Last century UMass Amherst had the reputation of ZooMass. Academics have greatly improved.
2 Likes
I remember those days! Academics have greatly improved but I think the study body still does a good deal of partying.
1 Like
So it looks like neither Po nor SLO is currently in the new Special Focus category, but instead in “Mixed Undergraduate/Graduate-Master’s Large/Medium”. UCLA, say, is in “Mixed Undergraduate/Graduate-Doctorate Large”.
As you note, right now, US News place Masters universities into Regional rather than National. It could choose to do the same thing again with Mixed Undergraduate institutions.
But the Special Focus classifications don’t work that way. So if they moved to the Special Focus: Technology, Engineering, and Sciences group instead, it would not appear US News could distinguish them from the former doctoral universities in that category.
I don’t know the details, but I note again the exact classification of whatever sciences and maths they offer could affect this, if they are close at least.
1 Like
If the rankings metrics include research output, it might not be advantageous for universities where the highest degree is a Master’s to be ranked along with PhD-granting universities.