Those rankings take into account some fairly irrelevant things and the numbers are misleading. For example, the way they calculate things doesn't mean it's a better education or the students are smarter. In fact schools get a bump if they have less accomplished incoming freshmen with similar graduation rates to another university with more academically accomplished freshmen from high school. That could just means the classes are much easier at the school with less intelligent and successful kids, so those kids can pass with not much effort. However, the school with less academically accomplished students gets a higher score in that category.
"Graduation rate performance: We compared each college's actual six-year graduation rate with what we predicted for its fall 2012 entering class. The predicted rates were modeled from admissions data, proportion of undergraduates awarded Pell Grants, school financial resources, proportion of federal financial aid recipients who are first generation, and National Universities' math and science, or STEM, orientations.
The first-generation students variable was new for the 2020 rankings and in effect gives schools more credit for their graduation rates when accomplished with higher proportions of students who were the first in their immediate families to attend college. The data was sourced from the U.S. Department of Education's College Scorecard. Its inclusion improved the model's predictive power.
Social mobility: Measures how well schools graduated students who received federal Pell Grants (those typically coming from households whose family incomes are less than $50,000 annually, though most Pell Grant money goes to students with a total family income below $20,000). New for the 2020 edition, data sourced from the federal government was used for nonresponders. Also, the below factors (weighted 2.5% each) were computed using two-year averages of fall 2011 and fall 2012 entering cohorts.
- Pell Grant graduation rates are the six-year graduation rates of Pell Grant students adjusted to give much more credit to schools with larger Pell student proportions.
- Pell Grant graduation rate performance is the factor that compares each school's six-year graduation rate among Pell recipients with its six-year graduation rate among non-Pell recipients by dividing the former into the latter, then adjusting to give much more credit to schools with larger Pell student proportions. The higher a school's Pell graduation rate relative to its non-Pell graduation rate up to the rates being equal, the better it scores.
U.S. News published a distinct
social mobility ranking for all schools. The social mobility ranking is computed from the two ranking factors assessing graduation rates of Pell-awarded students (5% of the rankings total)."
www.espn.com
