
Michael Thaddeus, professor and former chair of the math department at Columbia University initially published a scathing analysis charging Columbia with supplying incorrect information to US News, which resulted in the university having an inflated ranking. [1]
In a broader piece by the Guardian, Thaddeus suggests that the entire ranking system is thoroughly unreliable and probably corrupt. [2] I think that this is the tip of the iceberg - very likely the administrations of most competitive institutions play such morally dubious games with the corrupt ranking system.
Some choice quotes:
“Michael Thaddeus, a mathematics professor, said that by submitting rigged numbers to drive the university up the influential US News & World Report rankings, Columbia put its financial priorities ahead of students education in order to fund a ballooning and secretive bureaucracy.”
“When Thaddeus began to suspect that Columbia’s numbers didn’t add up, he saw the opportunity to discredit a system he regards as a con perpetrated on prospective students desperate to ensure that the tens of thousands of dollars a year many will spend on gigantic tuition fees are worth it.”
“The former head of Columbia’s mathematics department described an expanding and self-replicating bureaucracy that is growing ever more expensive to maintain. He said that Columbia’s endowment is not large enough to cover the cost of the growing administration and so it is paid for by increasing tuition costs.”
[1] http://www.math.columbia.edu/~thaddeus/ranking/investigation.html
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/16/columbia-whistleblower-us-news-rankings-michael-thaddeus
Very very good info. Thank you.