Robert Morse's Ranking of Higher Educational Institutions

Robert Morse is milking the cash cow that is controlling how the world thinks about higher education.  Are you one of the people who is falling for this unsubstantiated methodology?  If so, you'd better wake up and face reality.  And that reality is that the rankings only are maintaining the status quo in this country of elite vs. non-elite.  Is there really a need to rank every single thing in society?  It's not "complete information," it's "propaganda" at best.  In fact, if you buy into the rankings, as most of the Top-Law-School lemmings do, you had better start considering otherwise.  The truth is, these rankings are filth. Pure and simple.  Possibly one of the worst things that could be done in the realm of higher education.  I say boycott them and ignore them.  They literally serve no purpose whatsoever.

There is a lot of talk about schools being "ranked".  A man by the name of Bob Morse from the elite journal of news, also known as U.S. News and World Report has been ranking colleges for years now.  One wonders the purpose of this endeavor, but having been alive quite a while now, I have come to realize that:

People are OBSESSED with rankings.

Have you noticed that for some reason people have a need to rank every single thing in the world?  I don't really understand the obsession with having to be more elite or have more elite things than others.  When one really gets down to the science of what it means to be alive everyone is equal.  We are all something like a spark in the mind and no more than just a brain.  We have bodies, but those bodies are just vessels.  Yet, as people we are overly obsessed with clothing, possessions, money, prestige, attainment.  And in the end we all die.  What's the point of spending one's entire life in the pursuit of something that doesn't last?  Why do we feel the need to rank everything, and then feel awful if we can't have the best?  Isn't it psychologically degrading to think this way?  Isn't it mentally exhausting to spend one's entire life to search for something that some magazine or outside source says is the best?

Further, I ask myself, and the rest of the world:  Is ranking colleges and universities good?  Or does it just lead to an retention of the status quo?

I think that it's quite silly to rank colleges each year.  First of all, do colleges and universities really change that much in a single year?  I don't think so.  Second, such rankings are psychological in a sense.  People are going to always rank schools like Harvard, Yale, and Stanford higher than other schools.  People's perceptions of those schools are higher, and students who go to those schools think that no matter what, their school is the best, and will rank it accordingly.  As a result, no matter how superior another school may be, these schools will always be near the top.

I have found that since I have started college that I read less and less of the news.  I don't watch television news (I think that it's pretty much a way to control how people think and a way to sell them an idea of what life should be like).  I will not spend money on a news magazine that literally does damage to the fabric of society.  Who cares where one goes to school?  There are idiots that come out of the Ivy league and there are some incredibly intelligent individuals that come out of lesser schools (or who never finish high school for that matter).  To say that someone is more intelligent for going to a school ranked 65 over a school ranked 72 is asinine at best.  Yet, people will still feel superior to others for it, because some news magazine says that they are better for it. 

People are obsessed with numbers.  I have noticed this kind of thinking in law school.  From the moment we apply we are obsessed with our LSAT scores and our GPA in college.  We judge everything based on our class rank, which can get us on Law Review.  We are obsessed with the rankings of the schools as they come out every year.  People literally fill the cesspool known as Top-Law-Schools as the rankings come out, discussing and debating the methodology that goes into the rankings.  People talk about their surprise that Cardozo fell from the top 50 to the top 100.  People cry foul if Stanford rises above Harvard, or if Georgetown is no longer in the top 14.  People literally wrap themselves into these WORTHLESS rankings as if their lives depend on it.

And, yet sadly, employers do take into account these ridiculous numbers.  It affects the job market.  Something so arbitrary can literally have an effect on your career.  Schools become obsessive to try to game the system so that they can have a higher rank and bring in better students.  Yet, should the schools not spend their time and energy into actually making their schools the best places that they can be? 

Some people think that there is nothing wrong with these rankings.  Yet, I say that it's a MASSIVE part of the problem.  A school can easily feel justified in raising its tuition solely because of a high ranking.  That doesn't mean that a low ranked school will not raise its tuition.  For example, New York Law School has an IN$ANE tuition and a lower rank than many schools.  However, schools will make sure to hire the cream of the crop in professors and pay them bank to raise their spot from 67th to a four way tie at 62nd.  And if the school can be in the top 50, hoo boy:  You've got a ca$h cow on your hands.

Is Bob Morse doing us a favor by ranking the schools?  I don't think so.  I literally cringe when I see that "Best Colleges" issue hit the shelves every year.  I literally remember one year I threw up in my mouth upon seeing it.  I believe it comes out in the Spring, and I ask you: DO NOT BUY THAT STUPID MAGAZINE and DO NOT BUY INTO THE RANKINGS.  They are literally worthless.  It is pointless to rank everything in society.  Why not spare the headache and the heartache of crying when you see that your school fell to be in a seven way tie with the school you thought was so much worse than yours?

The rankings only hurt society and maintain the status-quo of elite vs. non-elite.  If higher education truly is a scam, so are these rankings, and they are a huge part of the problem, despite what many others say.