The University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus dropped out of the U.S. News & World Report’s top 20 best national universities ranking on Sept. 23. The University, which was ranked No. 20 last year, fell to No. 25.
The University maintained, however, its No. 3 spot in the public universities ranking. The Ross School of Business and School of Nursing maintained their rankings at No. 4 and No. 6,, while the College of Engineering dropped one spot to No. 6. Additionally, the University’s learning communities and study abroad programs were ranked No. 2 and No. 8, respectively.
The U.S. News methodology heavily considers student outcomes, with the Universities’ enrollment, graduation rates and post-graduate outcomes having a combined weight of more than 50%.
In an email to The Michigan Daily, Paul Corliss, assistant vice president for public affairs and internal communications, wrote that, while the University prides itself on its ranking as a top public university, he believes the overall rankings are not reflective of the University’s main goals.
“While rankings can fluctuate from year to year based on a variety of factors, they do not drive our work or mission, and we are proud to be consistently recognized among the nation’s leading universities by a variety of independent rankings throughout the year, including being named one of the top three public universities in the nation by U.S. News & World Report,” Corliss wrote.
The U.S. News list is not the only set of rankings released this year. Previously, TIME Magazine issued a global university ranking that placed the University at No. 9 out of 519 universities, and ranked it as the No. 1 public university nationally.
Information professor Kentaro Toyama, chair of the University’s Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs, told The Daily he feels outlets like The U.S. News have an incentive to change rankings around to gain online traction.
“I don’t place too much importance on dropping a few rankings,” Toyama said. “First of all, I think we all have to take those rankings with a hefty grain of salt, and secondly, I think those rankings are … often involved in generating news, and so they have a reason to want to change the rankings. Otherwise, if they’re the same all the time, nobody wants to read them.”
In an interview with The Daily, LSA senior Alexis Brown said she is concerned with how the University’s ranking could affect the perspectives of prospective students and the overall value of a U-M degree.
“As a senior now, I’m here less because of (prestige) and because I love the school, so it doesn’t really bother me as much,” Brown said. “But definitely as an applicant — or looking forward as my degree values itself down the line — I would definitely be wary of what policies the school has in place look like and how can we maintain our spot, if not get higher?”
LSA senior Laura Obade told The Daily she is concerned about what administrative actions — like the recent pass/fail LSA pilot program, which was paused yesterday — led to the drop in the University’s ranking compared to other institutions.
“I think us not being a top 20 school anymore makes me very wary of what the other rankings are,” Obade said. “It’s also making me very curious of some of the administrative choices like, for instance, no grades freshman year, and whether or not we’re making ourselves more appealing to students as customers, as opposed to students as an academic endeavor.”