Much ado about university rankings

There's been a lot of fussing lately by various schools regarding rankings of universities, particularly by U.S. News. See, for example, this USA Today story - http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2007-06-20-college-rankings_N.htm.

Simmering discontent has also giving rise to various alternative ways of doing college rankings - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_rankings, http://www.library.uiuc.edu/edx/rankings.htm. Of these, the most interesting approach, from my perspective, comes from Washington Monthly - http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0609.collegechart.html. Also interesting is that some public colleges have now decided to set up their own system using more or less what Washington Monthly suggested, a focus on student outcomes via national instruments such as Collegiate Learning Assessment, National Survey of Student Engagement, etc. - http://chronicle.com/daily/2007/06/2007062602n.htm.

All of this fussing has lead some commentators, such as the economist Robert Samuelson writing in Newsweek, to condemn the presidents of these liberal arts colleges for their efforts at "soft censorship" - http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/06/college_rankings_arent_perfect.html.