Top Line
The University of Southern California and education company 2U have been sued for allegedly misrepresenting the influential U.S. News and World Report college rankings to lure students into online courses. wall street journalIn another conflict over the use of the increasingly controversial rankings.
Aerial view of the University of Southern California logo on the field before a game in Los Angeles , [+]
Key Facts
The lawsuit, filed by the National Student Legal Defense Network, allegedly claims the university and company — which runs USC’s online graduate program — misled students by suggesting rankings for in-person education school classes for similar online classes. even though the courses had different selection standards.
The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Court, cited USC’s initial admission that it allegedly submitted false data to US News & World Report as evidence it defrauded its students.
USC pulled its Rossier School of Education from the rankings earlier this year when it ranked 11th in the most recent US News & World Report ranking of graduate education programs, claiming “inaccuracies in the survey data”. History” going back five years. years.
A USC spokesman told forbes The university “has not yet received the complaint,” while 2U did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
main background
The US News & World Report rankings have long been considered the industry standard for determining the reputation of higher education programs, but they have also been mired in allegations that schools manipulate the rankings, which rely heavily on test scores. Huh. The situation came to a head earlier this year, when a Columbia mathematics professor published a study that found the university used “outdated and/or inaccurate methods” to boost its ranking. Columbia later admitted that it sent misleading data to US News & World Report, causing the publication to drop Columbia from No. 2 to No. 18 in its national university rankings. That same day he was withdrawing his law schools from the rankings, claiming that the rankings give too much weight to test scores and penalize programs for admitting students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Law schools at universities such as Stanford, Georgetown and Michigan also dropped from the rankings.
amazing facts
It’s possible that U.S. News & World Report will continue ranking withdrawing schools in its next edition, as many of the data points on which it relies are publicly available.
further studies
University of Southern California sued over education-school ranking claims (Wall Street Journal)
Harvard Law School joins Yale and leaves US news ranking (Forbes)
Columbia University admits to submitting false data for last year’s US News ranking (Forbes)
