Anand Sanwal:

In the grand theater of American higher education, few performances are as anticipated—or as controversial—as the annual unveiling of the U.S. News & World Report college rankings. 

Like a high-stakes beauty pageant for academia, these rankings have become a cultural touchstone, influencing the decisions of countless students, parents, and even the very institutions they aim to evaluate. 

But beneath the glossy veneer of numerical precision lies a system rife with flaws, manipulations and unintended consequences.

I’ll propose a better way below but first, why are the US News Best Colleges rankings so useless?