re: 2014 USNews & World Report College Rankings Out

These polls exist solely to sell magazines and nothing more. The criteria change about every year and a new champion arises each year because of it.

My grad school alma mater (USF) gets hammered every year because of its low 4 year graduation rate. It's a metropolitan school with 40,000+ students; many of which are local residents/commuters who are working and going to college full time. As you'd expect there is a pretty high washout rate.

It's rated as very high research by Carnegie (Top 100 in the country) and was granted more US Patents than any other University in the US for the past two years. Its research funding is among the highest in the country. The admission criteria are tougher than many schools rated more highly. And yet there they are at #161.

The point is there is a lot more to many of these schools than just a ranking.

On the bright side, US News indicates USF is considered a great value based on its tuition and fees!

Freeman ranked #63. Ouch.

What also helps the Big10 schools, is they share research, and University of Chicago, which is a very good school, is included.

It's a windfall for schools, on the research front to join the B1G.

One thing I will say is that LSU, from what I've seen, does better at getting people well-paying jobs than certain other schools that are ranked higher. I don't know if it's because less LSU students major in the liberal arts, which typically don't lead into work, or if it's because its connections are good in the region between NO and Houston.