Could the Clemson Scandal Kill USNWR?

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Last week, Clemson University admitted to manipulating U.S. News and World Report‘s college ranking system. The scandal was embarrassing for Clemson, but it also put the magazine on the defense. Not a great place for a publication to be these days. So what does this mean for the future of USNWR?

By some measures, the magazine is not doing particularly well. In the beginning of 2008, it had  lower sales than the other two leading newsweeklies. In June of 2008, the magazine’s publishing schedule went from weekly to biweekly; by November it was down to monthly. 

Death knells for USNWR? Probably not, for one simple reason:

The annual college-ranking issue is a major cash cow. In 2007, the magazine’s publisher told the NY Times that within 72 hours of its online release of college rankings that year, the website received 20 times the visitors it usually receives in an entire month. Print, too:

 A typical college-ranking issue, Mr. Dyer said, sells 45,000 copies on the newsstand, 50 percent more than a routine issue. In book form, U.S. News sells hundreds of thousands of copies a year of its various college guides. And every year, there is a new crop of fretful high school seniors and high-strung parents.

“This,” Mr. Dyer said, “is a continually renewing market.”

Mr. Kelly, the magazine’s editor, added, “These things are annuities.”

USNWR‘s editors maintain that the rankings keep colleges competitive, ultimately improving their quality. Over at the Wall Street Journal’s Numbers Guy blog, Carl Bialik interviewed USNWR‘s research editor:

Robert Morse, director of data research at US News, told me that colleges seeking to improve in US News’s indicators will also improve in reality. “We believe the factors that we’re using measure academic quality,” Morse said. “If a school targets those variables, students aren’t going to be hurt.”

But Inside Higher Ed points out that Clemson has become much more exclusive over the past several years. Today, fewer than ten percent of its undergrads are first-generation college students.

The Clemson kerfuffle was only the most recent reminder of the extent to which USNWR holds colleges and universities in its thrall. Back in 2005 in a blog post entitled “Small Change by U.S. News Leads to New Controversy in Rankings,” WSJ‘s Bialik reported on how the magazine’s new LSAT-score policy discouraged racial diversity at law schools:

…one effect of the change is that lower test scores for incoming students now hurt schools’ rankings more than they did before. For advocates of affirmative action and lawyer diversity, that’s a problem, because blacks score lower, on average, on the Law School Admission Test than do whites.

Which means fewer black students at law schools, and consequently, fewer black lawyers.

Ugh. Surely there’s a way to evaluate schools without turning the whole thing into a numbers game where students are the losers. Ideas? Post ’em in the comments.

Update: On USNWR’s peer assessment survey, which accounts for a quarter of a school’s overall ranking, college administrators gave their own schools rave reviews while playing down competitor institutions.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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