How reliable are college rankings?

How reliable are college rankings?

College rankings are a controversial issue in the world of higher education right now, and it appeals to us as a nation of consumers of products - and higher education is a product - that we feel that we want to get the best service and the best quality for our tuition money. We seek out ways to measure quality. One of the more common ones is the US News and World Report Magazine's annual rankings of colleges and universities, and it looks at colleges and universities in a variety of different categories, and it assesses them against each other. This is a good system, but it is not fool-proof. Many people in the higher education world say to US news editors, "Where are you getting your criteria? Exactly how are you determining quality?", and that's where it is controversial. When we talk about prestige, and when we talk about what is a prestigious college, the bottom line really matters to you as a student where you want to go and what you want to do with your education. It's your education and it doesn't really matter as much about who says this school is prestigious, when what your focus should be on is "What do I want to do with my education and where do I want to go in life with that?"