College Affordability and U.S. News & World Report Rankings : Analyzing National and Regional Differences

In an era of billions of dollars in outstanding student loan debt, researchers have posited that the U.S. News & World Report rankings continue to be an influential source of information for prospective students, yet these rankings do not include college affordability metrics in their ranking algorithm. Instead, U.S. News has focused on traditional institutional characteristics unrelated to affordability, namely incoming student academic measures, resources available to faculty, alumni giving rates, and graduation and retention rates. As a result, this study performed a series of college affordability experiments by integrating affordability metrics into the U.S. News ranking algorithm to explore whether any affordability metric predicts overall ranking. Analyzing all 920 colleges and universities providing U.S. News complete statistics in 2017-2018, results suggest better ranked institutions enrolled lower percentages of Pell grant receiving students (p < 0.00), while the percentage of undergraduates receiving state aid predicted better rankings only at Regional Midwest and Regional West Universities (p < 0.05). These results suggest many college affordability metrics are not predictive of ranking among the best-ranked, elite institutions, possibly confusing prospective students and contributing to the student debt crisis. Implications for theory, practice, and college student choice are addressed