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Criticism of college and university rankings refers to critiques of various rankings publications among faculty and administrators in institutions of higher education in both the United States and Canada, as well as in media reports.
Arguments critical of U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges Rankings include that it is not possible to arrive at a single number which characterizes university performance; ratings can be easily manipulated; and ratings may include subjective characteristics, like "reputation", as determined by surveying university administrators, such as chancellors or deans.[1] Critics say rankings have incentivized institutions to encourage more unqualified students to apply (in order to increase selectivity) and are a better measure of the abilities students had when they arrived than what they learned from higher education. In 2023, a third of the 196 law schools annually surveyed had withdrawn cooperation from the U.S. News rankings.
In 2006, 26 of 47 universities in Canada refused to complete annual MacLean's Guide to Canadian Universities surveys. Subsequently, 11 Canadian universities issued a joint statement describing the rankings as "over-simplified and arbitrary".[2]