Johnson & Wales Trumpets New College Ranking, After It Had Been “Unranked” for Submitting False Data
Thursday, September 15, 2022
College ranking controversies have been big news recently after Columbia University was bounced from the number two position in the U.S. News & World Report ranking.
The publication demoted Columbia University to No. 18 after a controversy over whether the school had fudged its numbers. The issue was brought forward by a Columbia professor.
The drop suggests that the highly influential rankings — which have been criticized for having an outsize influence on parents and college admissions — can be easily manipulated, since they rely heavily on data submitted by the universities that directly benefit from them.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTAccording to a report in the Chronicle of Higher Education in March of this year, “Michael Thaddeus, a Columbia professor of mathematics, laid out his case in more than 11,000 words on his faculty page. Skeptical of the university’s ranking, he purchased a U.S. News subscription that let him see some of the detailed data upon which the rankings are based. Columbia’s data didn’t square with his experience of teaching there.”
When JWU Was in Ranking Controversy
In Rhode Island, Johnson & Wales University (JWU) is claiming that it has improved its position in the U.S. News ranking — the claim comes just a couple of years after it was booted from the rankings for filing false data.
This week, JWU announced in a press release, “Johnson & Wales University moved up in the U.S. News & World Report ranking of the best colleges in America, according to the annual report released on Monday. JWU’s Providence Campus was ranked at number 70 out of 175 schools in the northeast region, moving up 24 spots from the year prior."
Chancellor Mim L. Runey, LP.D. said the improved ranking exemplifies the hard work of faculty and staff over the past year.
“Today, as U.S. News & World Report releases its Best Colleges rankings, I am pleased to see the hard work of our faculty and staff over the last year being recognized nationwide,” Runey said. “We know the investments we have made in our students and our increase of high-touch student experiences on both the Providence and Charlotte campuses have contributed to our rise in the ranking.”
In 2018 Runey Made Similar Claims and Then Got “Unranked”
In 2018, when naming Runey, Chancellor of Johnson & Wales, the University announced in a press release that "achievements have contributed to Johnson & Wales' rise in US News & World Report's Regional North rankings from 84 to 64.”
Then, JWU was summarily “unranked” by U.S. News and World Report in 2019.
“Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island recently told U.S. News that for many years the school had been over-reporting its financial resource expenditures budget for its Providence campus. The school had been reporting financial expenditures data for all Johnson & Wales campuses to U.S. News instead of just for the Providence campus. The school told U.S. News that for every $100 of financial resources expenditures it had reported, it should have been around $62. Financial resources expenditures per student accounts for 10% of the Best Colleges ranking,” reported U.S. News of the revelation.
Presently both the president and the chancellor of Johnson & Wales must certify the information submitted.
“In light of these misreporting issues, U.S. News has requested University of California—Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ, University of California system President Janet Napolitano and Johnson & Wales University Chancellor Mim L. Runey and Johnson & Wales University Providence Campus President Marie Bernardo-Sousa to provide a letter certifying the accuracy of their respective schools' data in their data submissions to U.S. News for the next three editions of the Best Colleges rankings,” said the magazine at the time.
Johnson and Wales did not respond to requests for comment in 2019 when GoLocal first reported the "de-ranking" -- and would not answer questions this week, either.
Regardless of Johnson & Wales or Columbia's ranking, the whistleblower on Columbia's numbers is critical of the US News ranking as a whole.
“The broader lesson everyone should keep in mind is that U.S. News has shown its operations are so shoddy that both of them are meaningless,” Thaddeus told The New York Times this week. “If any institution can decline from No. 2 to No. 18 in a single year, it just discredits the whole ranking operation.”
Editor's Note: The de-ranking of Johnson and Wales was first published 7/28/19 6:00 PM by GoLocal.
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