I spent last week in Maine visiting a couple of college counseling friends who either live or are spending the summer there. In doing so I got off the college admissions grid as much as I ever do (I am nerdy enough–or neurotic enough–that I check email even when supposedly on vacation).
I really wanted to go, but figuring out how to get there was the obstacle. It’s a long drive, and I didn’t trust my car with 180,000 miles to survive that kind of trip. Renting a car was prohibitively and equally expensive, whether for the entire trip or flying into Boston and then renting. And there have been almost daily stories about the horrors of air travel this summer. I ultimately decided to take an early, direct flight into Boston and then take Amtrak’s Downeaster to Maine.
It was a fun, relaxing, and rewarding week–until I tried to return home. My return flight was late Friday night, and it was the part of the trip I most dreaded. That turned out to be appropriate anxiety. My train arrived back in Boston around 6, and as I arrived I received a notification that my 10:40 flight was delayed until 11:15. That didn’t concern me, as I had been tracking the same flight for a couple of weeks and that delay was typical. However, there were storms up and down the East Coast.
I arrived at the gate in time to see an earlier flight to Richmond board and take off. Over the next several hours my flight was delayed even later, as were a number of other flights. Those flights ultimately took off, leaving mine scheduled to depart at 2 a.m. Those of us waiting patiently but anxiously were assured multiple times that our crew was at the airport and that our flight would definitely go as soon as an aircraft arrived from LaGuardia. That plane arrived, but at 3 a.m. we were told that the flight was canceled, leading to a rush downstairs to try to rebook.
The JetBlue help desk wasn’t particularly helpful. I was told that the best they could do was put me on a flight nearly two days later connecting through Fort Lauderdale, a little out of the way. They weren’t willing to provide lodging or help with booking through other airlines. So at 4 a.m. I went to a quiet corner of Logan Airport, pulled out my phone, and was able to book an 8:30 a.m. train home. It was a 12-hour trip, but I like traveling by train, and it was good to get home on Saturday night rather than spend 36 hours in the airport.
While I was in Maine one piece of breaking news in the college admissions world was that two class action lawsuits had been filed against Columbia University seeking damages in the wake of questions about the accuracy of Columbia’s reported data for the U.S. News rankings. Columbia mathematics professor Michael Thaddeus raised questions about the validity of the data back in February, especially with regard to metrics such as class sizes and spending on instruction. At the end of June Columbia announced that it was withdrawing from this year’s rankings, where it was slated to earn a ranking of #2, while it conducted an internal investigation. To add insult to injury, U.S. News subsequently placed Columbia in the rankings equivalent of “timeout.”
So what are we to make of the lawsuits? Has the kerfuffle about Columbia’s ranking damaged the two plaintiffs, both former students at Columbia, as well as others who might sign on to the class action, or is this an example of a frivolous lawsuit looking to make a buck off of this situation? You may remember that immediately following the public announcement of the criminal complaints in the Operation Varsity Blues scandal, several Stanford students instigated lawsuits claiming that the value of their degrees had been damaged by the revelations about Stanford’s sailing coach being involved in the scandal. As far as I know, those lawsuits went nowhere.
The two lawsuits against Columbia are remarkably similar, in fact word-for-word similar except for the different plaintiffs. That may be because both plaintiffs are represented by the same attorney.
I am not a lawyer, nor have I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express recently, but here is the essence of the suit.
The misrepresented data violates Section 349 of New York’s General Business Law.
The violations were “immoral, unethical, and unscrupulous.”
Columbia breached its agreement with the Plaintiffs and each Class member by representing to U.S. News that it possessed “certain characteristics, qualifications, requirements, benefits, and levels of attainment that it did not actually possess.”
The misreporting was necessary for Columbia to retain its “extremely high ranking.”
The U.S. News ranking enabled Columbia to increase its enrollment.
The Plaintiffs and other students enrolled at Columbia “largely due to the prestige associated with Columbia’s extremely high USNWR ranking.”
The Plaintiffs would not have applied to Columbia if aware of the data misreporting.
The misreporting raises “grave concerns” about the value and legitimacy of a Columbia degree.
Let’s try to evaluate some of these claims and look at the larger underlying issues.
First of all, misrepresenting data is indefensible. The college admission profession should stand for truth and transparency. It is too early to know whether the misrepresentation is an error or intentional, and obviously the second would make the offense worse.
It is not only Columbia that is on trial here. The U.S. News rankings are on trial as well. Are the rankings designed to be a source of news, or a source of entertainment in the same way that professional wrestling is sports entertainment rather than a sport?
The rankings purport to be newsworthy, and yet U.S. News makes little attempt to verify the data reported by colleges, relying instead on an honor system. That would by itself be questionable, but given the numerous examples of colleges fudging data through the years it is inexcusable. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice… Either U.S. News is negligent in ranking colleges based on unverified information or it should admit that its rankings are for entertainment purposes only.
It may have already admitted the latter. At a conference years ago, U.S. News’s ranking guru Bob Morse described the ranking as a “good product.” He bristled when I asked if it was good journalism. But that remains an essential question, and is central to the claims made in the lawsuit.
There is one claim in the lawsuit that seems false, misunderstanding selective admission. It is not the case that Columbia has increased its enrollment due to the rankings. It has instead increased its number of applications and its ability to be “rejective.” Columbia has the largest percentage increase in applications since 1989, increasing its applicant pool sixfold. During that period its admit rate has dropped from 27% to 6%.
That raises another, “chicken or egg,” question. Does Columbia’s prestige arise from its ranking or does Columbia’s ranking arise from its prestige?
That question is relevant to several other claims made in the lawsuit, including that the misreporting was necessary for Columbia to maintain its high ranking, that the “value and legitimacy” of a Columbia degree is called into question by the concern about the information, and that the plaintiffs wouldn’t have enrolled at Columbia if they had been aware of the misrepresentation.
How much would the corrected information change Columbia’s ranking? It had been ranked third the previous couple of years, and had been ranked in the top 10 among National Universities for more than 30 years. Is its ranking likely to drop that much with corrected data? And how much difference is there really between being ranked second and being ranked tenth? Does this situation change anything about the value or substance of a Columbia education?
I am skeptical that this situation renders Columbia’s degree any less valuable or legitimate, just as I am skeptical that the plaintiffs wouldn’t have enrolled at Columbia. When my flight was canceled at 3 a.m. last Saturday morning, I would have signed on to a class action lawsuit in a second, but I wasn’t harmed as much as inconvenienced. I’m not sure there is any difference with Columbia’s rankings problems.