ISU drops in US News ranking this year

[Cyclonsin]

That may be, but seems to me, the people who actually research if these rankings are flawed or BS are the ones who fall in the rankings. They may be flawed and they may be BS, I really don't know because I've never looked at the criteria for the rankings, but they are out there and I guarantee you people out there see them when making decisions about schools. We live in a headline based society now. The news that ISU dropped is out there, no matter how flawed.

Oh, I have no doubt that the only folks who are questioning the validity of these are those who dropped. That seems somewhat obvious.

To me, personally, this is pretty meaningless. I haven't looked into going to a college in the last 20 years, so I'm obviously out of touch on the whole subject. Is this something that today's high schoolers will care about? I have a hard time believing these make a huge difference to those considering ISU, but I could certainly be wrong.

 

[Clonefan94]

Oh, I have no doubt that the only folks who are questioning the validity of these are those who dropped. That seems somewhat obvious.

To me, personally, this is pretty meaningless. I haven't looked into going to a college in the last 20 years, so I'm obviously out of touch on the whole subject. Is this something that today's high schoolers will care about? I have a hard time believing these make a huge difference to those considering ISU, but I could certainly be wrong.

I would agree, I don't think it's a huge difference. I'm just pointing out that the headline is out there, that's how a good chunk of our society gets it's news now and that's all the further they dig. I would just prefer it not be out there.

 

[Trice]

That may be, but seems to me, the people who actually research if these rankings are flawed or BS are the ones who fall in the rankings. They may be flawed and they may be BS, I really don't know because I've never looked at the criteria for the rankings, but they are out there and I guarantee you people out there see them when making decisions about schools. We live in a headline based society now. The news that ISU dropped is out there, no matter how flawed.

They're based on reasonably objective , but also easily manipulated, criteria. Colleges started gaming the the stats - occasionally illegitimately but often quite legitimately - to improve their rankings. Some schools (like Ivies) wanted to look better so they spend marketing dollars to drive up applications, so they can reject 98% of them and look even more selective, which drives up their rankings. It's insidious - it creates false hope in kids, to say nothing of the wasted effort. I heard a story of one major university that launched a campaign asking each alum to give $1, driving up their alumni giving stats to improve their ranking.

And there's a false sense of precision there too. The rankings are probably directionally correct - the #20 school is almost certainly better than the #80 school - but no consumer is likely to be able to discern the difference between #20 and #30. Go far enough down the list and you'll find like 15 schools tied at #117 or whatever. How is that helpful?

I'm not sure what the solution is - perhaps organizing into tiers without specific rankings? - but it's one of those can't live with it, can't live without it types of things. Back when these rankings started, they were one of few tools people had to "objectively" evaluate schools. These days, the situation has flipped - there's so much data publicly available, it's hard to make sense of it all. So what do people do? Revert to the rankings. It's a mess.

 

[Cloneon]

Ohhh. I gotta. You, pretty much, have got be over 50 to see this and the older you are the more obvious it is.

The new 'vertical' in industry has changed from separate industry to stacked industries (e.g. corporate ag, processed foods, pharma ). Indoctrinated education along these lines, therefore, is the propaganda perpetuated. Don't get me wrong. Capitalism is great, but only if it's a totally free market, not permeated by the Blackrocks, Vanguards, and State Streets of the world. Please. This is not political. Just check their ownership in each of those industries. They control the corporations. And, not coincidentally, they also control the majority of 'debt'. Not a monopoly in the legal definition, but definitely something that rules the vast majority of all of our lives.

And, of course, the educational institutions most influential in this thinking are getting higher grades. Interesting, however, is why Iowa has slipped too, but I'll leave that to other's opinions on that. Regardless, this is part of the reason why ISU's AAU status was removed. We're an ag school leaning more and more towards soil recovery and healthy agriculture. Which, in the cycle mentioned above, clogs the 'processed foods' and 'pharmaceuticals' money making machines.

So, when a media evaluation surfaces, I give it little to no credence because the vast majority of their advertising revenue comes from ... you guessed it.

 

[NickTheGreat]

Malcolm Gladwell has had an interesting podcast series on college rankings. It was from the angle of HBCU's, but explained a lot about how the ranking work (or don't)

 

[Turn2]

These rankings are not useless. Don't use them to compare with last year's standing. Use them to compare trends over DECADES.

For instance, around 1990, ISU's College of Agriculture was generally considered the third best in the nation, behind Cornell and Texas A&M. Check those rankings today and Cornell, UC-Davis and Texas A&M are still at the top, but ISU lags in at anywhere from 8th to 17th. That is a trend.

If the same applies across colleges within the U, you have a systemic problem.

 

[cyclone87]

ISU was rated very highly in terms of ROI of a degree by Money (highest in the state along with Grinell): https://www.desmoinesregister.com/s...uition-money-best-colleges-2024/74266678007/#

 

[FriendlySpartan]

They're based on reasonably objective , but also easily manipulated, criteria. Colleges started gaming the the stats - occasionally illegitimately but often quite legitimately - to improve their rankings. Some schools (like Ivies) wanted to look better so they spend marketing dollars to drive up applications, so they can reject 98% of them and look even more selective, which drives up their rankings. It's insidious - it creates false hope in kids, to say nothing of the wasted effort. I heard a story of one major university that launched a campaign asking each alum to give $1, driving up their alumni giving stats to improve their ranking.

And there's a false sense of precision there too. The rankings are probably directionally correct - the #20 school is almost certainly better than the #80 school - but no consumer is likely to be able to discern the difference between #20 and #30. Go far enough down the list and you'll find like 15 schools tied at #117 or whatever. How is that helpful?

I'm not sure what the solution is - perhaps organizing into tiers without specific rankings? - but it's one of those can't live with it, can't live without it types of things. Back when these rankings started, they were one of few tools people had to "objectively" evaluate schools. These days, the situation has flipped - there's so much data publicly available, it's hard to make sense of it all. So what do people do? Revert to the rankings. It's a mess.

They did revamp how they did the rankings 2-3 years ago to help avoid this. There are still issues obv but it’s better than it was. Still too much weight is given to “peer reputation” from other university’s and how they view that school.

Seeing way more ties here then usual and honestly while it is looked at and many do take it seriously it’s not usually a deciding factor as most students are applying to schools in the similar ranking area. No one is looking at UVA or UNC and also looking at ASU as an example.

 

[nrg4isu]

Higher education rankings are a pinky-finger-out pissing match and nearly completely pointless in my opinion.

1) Does the university provide the coursework and curriculum to educate the student to a level which readies them for work in an industry?
2) Are there opportunities to expand this education beyond a base level degree program?

If yes to both of those questions, congrats, you're tied for #1. The rest is up to the person doing the learning.

 

[FriendlySpartan]

Higher education rankings are a pinky-finger-out pissing match and nearly completely pointless in my opinion.

1) Does the university provide the coursework and curriculum to educate the student to a level which readies them for work in an industry?
2) Are there opportunities to expand this education beyond a base level degree program?

If yes to both of those questions, congrats, you're tied for #1. The rest is up to the person doing the learning.

So in your mind Harvard is the same as Mississippi state or WVU. Not saying it’s right but that’s not the way the world works.

 

[Trice]

They did revamp how they did the rankings 2-3 years ago to help avoid this. There are still issues obv but it’s better than it was. Still too much weight is given to “peer reputation” from other university’s and how they view that school.

Seeing way more ties here then usual and honestly while it is looked at and many do take it seriously it’s not usually a deciding factor as most students are applying to schools in the similar ranking area. No one is looking at UVA or UNC and also looking at ASU as an example.

I'm not sure that's true. I read a piece recently (I can't find it now) about high-performing kids going to colleges they're overqualified for because they get more merit aid.

 

[Cloneon]

So in your mind Harvard is the same as Mississippi state or WVU. Not saying it’s right but that’s not the way the world works.

I continued my education at Iowa State into a second degree because, quite frankly, I got little usable education from my first one. And while the name 'Harvard' conjures up impassable accolades, I can't entirely agree. Let's take a Masters in Business. If the business degrees are so good, why do only 25% of businesses get beyond their first year and only 15% of those get beyond year 10? Those are abysmal results. Ok. You might accurately argue those aren't 'Harvard' degrees. So, then why are high profile companies hitting the skids with enormous insurmountable debt? San Apple (and their time will come) and Oracle (which always seems to steer right), I can't name a behemoth that's heading in the right direction. And, by right direction, I mean 'quality', not 'marketing'.

 

[HFCS]

Malcolm Gladwell has had an interesting podcast series on college rankings. It was from the angle of HBCU's, but explained a lot about how the ranking work (or don't)

That series was interesting and everything else I've read leads me to believe these rankings are not very legitimate, but I worry people would take the silliness of this ranking, and ignore other indicators for the university system and public education system as a whole.

It can make for a nice well meaning excuse. At some point it's just a matter of priority and investment. It seems like publicly funded private grade schools and high schools are the highest priority, not universities. That's a lot of money the state seems to have available for that.

 

[alarson]

These rankings are not useless. Don't use them to compare with last year's standing. Use them to compare trends over DECADES.

For instance, around 1990, ISU's College of Agriculture was generally considered the third best in the nation, behind Cornell and Texas A&M. Check those rankings today and Cornell, UC-Davis and Texas A&M are still at the top, but ISU lags in at anywhere from 8th to 17th. That is a trend.

If the same applies across colleges within the U, you have a systemic problem.

Yep. Honestly I think the bigger takeaways are momentum changes rather than the top-line rankings. Similar to political polls where the margin often matters less than the direction the polls are moving.

Is the overall ranking for Iowa State accurate? Who knows. Is the negative momentum in the rankings reflected by reality? Very likely. Years of state-level underinvestment naturally create that.

 

[FriendlySpartan]

I'm not sure that's true. I read a piece recently (I can't find it now) about high-performing kids going to colleges they're overqualified for because they get more merit aid.

If you find it I would love to read it, always interested in those kinds of things

 

[FriendlySpartan]

I continued my education at Iowa State into a second degree because, quite frankly, I got little usable education from my first one. And while the name 'Harvard' conjures up impassable accolades, I can't entirely agree. Let's take a Masters in Business. If the business degrees are so good, why do only 25% of businesses get beyond their first year and only 15% of those get beyond year 10? Those are abysmal results. Ok. You might accurately argue those aren't 'Harvard' degrees. So, then why are high profile companies hitting the skids with enormous insurmountable debt? San Apple (and their time will come) and Oracle (which always seems to steer right), I can't name a behemoth that's heading in the right direction. And, by right direction, I mean 'quality', not 'marketing'.

You’re talking about start up businesses, a Harvard MBA gets you well into the 6 figures at established corps. Trying to gauge entrepreneurs is extremely hard but those Ivy credentials help get a lot of funding.

Good thing quality doesn’t pay, Uber is worth billions and has never turned a profit. Pretty sure most of those corps hiring those elite grads are posting record valuations. Quality doesn’t mean anything when you have almost no competition

 

[Gonzo]

Yeah it is flawed but prospective students absolutely look at this stuff and it unfortunately is really important to attracting top talent

100% truth. And equally (or more?) important, parents look at this stuff.

There are tons of ways to game this stuff. Schools go into overdrive to generate the most possible applications they can get, solely with the intention of denying as many as they can in order to drive down their acceptance rate % which then drives up their ranking. Another fun stat that gets manipulated (not sure if it's a US News metric though) is the % of graduates employed within their first 6 months after they graduate. Of course they don't tell you that this could include employment at McDonald's.

 

[1TwistedCyclone]

121 out of 1,497 doesn't sound as bad, but still never good to slide backwards.

https://www.usnews.com/education/articles/why-a-school-moved-in-the-latest-rankings#:~:text=But%20because%20U.S.%20News%20ranks,only%20a%20few%20key%20points.

 

[theshadow]

Even if you take US News rankings as gospel (and you really shouldn't), the difference between a tie for 115th and a tie for 121st could be as little as one school moving up from one tied group into another tied group.

 

[isucy86]

JMO, but splitting hairs between schools ranked 100 & 150 when determining quality of school. Has something to do with the bell curve.