U.S. News & World Report, one of the most prominent college ranking reports, recently announced that Columbia University had been removed from the 2022 ranking report. Columbia University was originally ranked as the second best college in America according to the U.S. News.; Hhowever, amid the controversy of the legitimacy of the data provided by the university, not only did Columbia University withdrew from the 2023 ranking, the U.S. News also followed up by announcing the decision. The accusation was raised by Columbia University’s Mathematic professor, who pointed out that Columbia’s ranking is based on inaccurate and misleading information. When asked to substantiate the data, Columbia University still has been unable to provide the U.S. News with the information requested. Though the university was at first in firm defense of the validity of its data, later refused to provide any “undergraduate-related information” by claiming that they are conducting their own investigation.

Though the U.S. News and Columbia University seemed to have resolved the problem by both removing the school from the ranking list and claiming to conduct thorough investigation, once again, many started to speculate the accuracy and credibility of the school ranking system. Dr. Micheal Thaddeus, the professor who first raised suspicion against Columbia’s data, stated that “at some point there has to be third-party auditing since these data are so important and so many people are making final decisions based upon the data. It won’t do to say these data are self-reported and there’s no way to check them.” The president of Princeton, Christopher Eisgruber also spoke on this issue. He stated that it is detrimental for the parents, students, and schools to take the ranking too seriously. As more students made their choices based on the ranking report and pressured themselves to get into the highest ranked school possible, many schools started to only focus on resources that could help with their ranking, but ignored the goal of a educational institution, which is to provide education to talented, well-deserving students regardless of their social status.