Why do most of the institutions of higher education in the United States participate in a rankings system? What do the rankings do? And what does it mean when some schools refuse to participate in rankings? This episode explores:

• How and why the ranking system got started.
• Who creates the ranking.
• Why the statics and data collected for it aren’t neutral or even necessarily accurate.
• What the rankings mean to prospective students, their families, and even alumni.
• Why some schools might have to stay in the ranking system, even as more schools are refusing to participate.

Our guest is: Francie Diep, who is a senior reporter covering money in higher education for The Chronicle of Higher Education. She joined The Chronicle in 2019. Previously, she spent a decade covering health and science, including funding for academic labs, for publications including Pacific Standard, Popular Science, Scientific American, and The New York Times. She received her bachelor’s degree in English from the University of California at Los Angeles and her master’s in journalism from New York University.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

• "A Third Top 10 Law School Pulls out of US News Rankings" by Francie Diep in The Chronicle of Higher Education
• "Is This The Beginning of the End of the US News Rankings Dominance?" by Francie Diep in The Chronicle of Higher Education
• The Truth about College Admission: A Family Guide to Getting In and Staying Together, by Brennan Barnard and Rick Clark
• The Merit Myth: How Our Colleges Favor the Rich and Divide America, by Anthony Carnevale et al
• Breaking Ranks: How the Rankings Industry Rules Higher Education and What to Do About It, by Colin Diver
• This article in the Guardian about the Columbia University rankings whistleblower
• This podcast on the book about admissions entitled Get Real and Get In

Welcome to the Academic Life! On the Academic Life channel we are inspired and informed by today’s knowledge-producers, working inside and outside the academy. Missed any of our episodes? You’ll find more than 100 of the Academic Life podcast episodes archived and freely available to you on the New Books Network website.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life