U.S. News has revised its college ranking system. It still fails to help families find their best higher-education deals.

By Jillian Berman

The publication tweaked its methodology after a backlash, but experts still question the ranking's value

U.S. News & World Report is out with its latest ranking of America's top colleges, but critics say the controversial list's revised methodology does little to help families find their best deal on higher education

This year's rankings mark the second year U.S. News has used this new approach following complaints that the list focused too much on what students brought to a school and less on what they got out of it.

Still, there was little change at the tippy top of the list. The schools occupying the top 10 positions appeared there last year in some form. The publication named Princeton University, the Ivy League institution in New Jersey, the best school overall for the 14th year in a row.

At the same time, the name-brand schools that occupy the top 100 did shift around. Tulane University in New Orleans, which complained loudly last year after a methodology change dropped the school 29 spots, is up 10 spots this year to No. 63. Howard University, a historically Black university in Washington, D.C., jumped 29 spots to No. 86. Some public schools, including the University of Delaware and the University of Connecticut, fell 10 spots or more.

That dynamic - little to no change among the highest-ranked schools and movement in the middle of the top - adds fuel to critics' complaints that the ranking is arbitrary and does little to help students make an informed choice in what could be one of the most momentous decisions and biggest expenses they'll ever take on.

The publication needs to bless the same top schools in order to appear legitimate but provide enough fluctuation elsewhere for people to pay attention, they say. That's even though colleges and what they offer don't change that much year to year.

"How stable are the rankings?" Michael Harris, a professor of higher education at Southern Methodist University, asked in an interview before knowing the outcome. "On the one hand, institutions don't change that much, so you would expect a fair amount of stability. That's not sexy or attention grabbing."

At the same time, "everybody says they want to be in the top 25 - there's only 25, by definition somebody has got to come down," Harris added. "The accumulated privilege and prestige of those institutions makes that impossible. It's just not going to change that much regardless of how much better you get as an institution."

Why the U.S. News ranking of best colleges became the subject of controversy

For years, the U.S. News rankings have been controversial. College leaders lament out loud that they incentivize schools to spend more, pursue wealthier students and other behavior outside what they perceive as their mission - and yet they go to tout their ranking if it's high or goes up. Over the past few years, some prominent schools' decisions to stop participating in the rankings have made headlines.

Partially in response, U.S. News changed its methodology last year to focus more on how well students fared after graduating from a college, particularly first-generation and low-income students. That decision created a whole controversy of its own, with private schools that fell precipitously protesting and public schools that jumped several spots celebrating.

'One of the most damaging aspects about the rhetoric around the U.S. News rankings is focusing on who is No. 1 in the rankings. Where are the Ivy leagues shaking out? That drives so much of the narrative in higher education.'Michael Harris, SMU

This year, the publication shifted its methodology slightly once again by removing the graduation rates of first-generation students from the formula. U.S. News first looked at outcomes tied to first-generation students last year but decided to stop considering that data this year because they weren't consistent enough across institutions, a U.S. News spokesperson said.

The 2025 edition of the list does feature some swings, but the rankings are coming in a season where higher-education leaders, students and families are likely to be preoccupied with other priorities. In the past several months, colleges and universities have faced perhaps unprecedented challenges that weren't present last year when the debate over the rankings erupted.

There are questions surrounding how the Supreme Court's decision banning affirmative action last year will impact schools' efforts to create a diverse student body going forward. There's an increased focus on campus protests surrounding the war in Gaza. There's concern that colleges and families will suffer after a botched revamp of the Free Application for Federal Financial Aid put some students at risk of not enrolling. Worries about costs are, of course, ever-present, particularly as some schools approach six-figure annual price tags. And then there's a broad worry among college leaders that the public is losing faith in the value of their product.

'I struggle to find a usefulness from these rankings beyond as a measure of the quote-unquote general status of the institutions.'Dominique Baker, University of Delaware

The U.S. News rankings don't offer much that is helpful to students and families in sorting out questions in this environment, said Dominique Baker, an associate professor at the University of Delaware who studies higher education. You could imagine a situation where the rankings provide information on the political environment a school is operating in or how a school's board is approaching issues of academic freedom, for example.

"I struggle to find a usefulness from these rankings beyond as a measure of the quote-unquote general status of the institutions," she said.

In a video published along with the rankings, LaMont Jones, the managing editor for education at U.S. News, said the rankings can be "a starting point" for students and families as they try to figure out where to go to school.

"It offers an opportunity to judge the relative quality of the education experience at schools according to widely accepted indicators of excellence," Jones said.

"Study the data," Jones advised. "The rankings are a source of useful information about colleges that might be otherwise hard to obtain and can help you narrow down your search to a small number of colleges that are a good fit."

A U.S. News spokesperson added that the publication's methodologies have evolved over the past 30 years and "will continue to evolve to meet the needs of students and to reflect the changing landscape of higher education and the need for access to additional metrics." In addition, the organization meets with stakeholders and relies on user feedback to refine its methodologies, the spokesperson said.

'Study the data. The rankings are a source of useful information about colleges that might be otherwise hard to obtain and can help you narrow down your search to a small number of colleges that are a good fit.'LaMont Jones, U.S. News & World Report

When U.S. News first began publishing its rankings in the early 1980s, there wasn't much information publicly available to students and families about colleges, said David Hawkins, the chief education and policy officer at the National Association for College Admission Counseling. That meant the publication did provide a useful service, said Hawkins, who has been working on these issues for more than two decades.

But in the years since, students' and families' concerns have evolved, as have the sources of information available as they seek information about schools, Hawkins said. In fact, roughly 60% of the young people aged 16 to 22 surveyed by the Harris Poll on behalf of Hawkins's organization said they're overwhelmed by the advice they've been given related to college. He expects all of this could combine to push U.S. News rankings into the background for many families, he said.

"Over the last two decades, the concern about cost and the role that cost plays as a driver of the college-enrollment decision has escalated quite a bit," Hawkins said. "Along with that, there has also developed a sort of industry, if you will, a type of resource that is more aimed at helping a student figure out how much a college will cost them."

Still, for some families, the U.S. News seal of approval is influential, said Marie Morris, an independent college admissions consultant. "Unfortunately, parents do pay a lot of attention to that," Morris said.

Pursuing schools that have been deemed "good" can lead families to make high-stakes financial gambles. She's known of parents who've dipped into their retirement accounts to pay for their child to attend a highly ranked school, she said. "That's one expensive bumper sticker - I'm sorry."

U.S. News rankings don't reward schools for reining in cost

One reason for the mismatch between at least one marker of prestige and the challenge families face paying for college is that the U.S. News rankings, which still hold sway among college leaders, including both presidents and board members, don't exactly reward colleges for keeping costs low.

The average amount of student debt a graduate who has taken out a loan at a given school departs with accounts for 5% of a school's ranking in the U.S. News methodology. In addition, the share of a school's federal student-loan recipients who are earning more than the median salary of a high school graduate carries a 5% weight. Still, U.S. News' overall ranking doesn't measure things like cost or return on investment. Factors like how much a college spends on students accounts for about 8%.

"It certainly, in my mind, has contributed directly to the rise in tuition because there's no incentive for keeping tuition down - in fact it rewards spending per student," Michael Elliott, the president of Amherst College, said at a gathering of college presidents and media last year.

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