"What's so shameful about this campaign against the [US News and World Report college] rankings," Robert Samuelson writes, "is its anti-intellectualism." No. What's so shameful is the Samuelson column is its anti-intellectualism, and speed to recast a serious attack against an idiosyncratic, toweringly powerful rankings system as a mere example of sour grapes.
Does Samuelson think it relevant, for instance, how much money alumni give to the university every year? Are financial resources per student really so telling? Should US News be allowed to simply make up SAT scores for non-participating schools? We don't know. Not only does Samuelson neglect to engage such critiques, he never even mentions them. Instead, we get this cunning bit of divination: "Unsurprisingly, many complaining schools don't rank high. Some seem further down the list of colleges than their old-line reputations imply. Barnard is at 26; Kenyon at 32."
Unsurprisingly indeed. Sadly, Samuelson never seems to realize that this is utterly unilluminating. If poorly-ranked schools lose their authority to complain, so too do highly-ranked institutions forfeit the credibility to defend. Indeed, given the self-interest of all the actors involved, the only viable method of settling the dispute would be to examine the actual claims being made. Which Samuelson never does. What we do learn, though, is that "Brian Kelly, U.S. News's editor, is a friend," and also that students of the non-participating schools "will learn...a life lesson in cynicism: how eminent authorities cloak their self-interest in high-sounding, deceptive rhetoric."
You don't say.
