USC is ranked 28th in the latest U.S.News&World Report university rankings, three places lower than last year. Some USC students believe the slight drop in the ranking is not a big deal.
Junior Jon Dekker doesn’t think dropping three spots will negatively impact USC’s reputation.
Jon Dekker: I mean, I think it means a little for sure. If it’s a drop within three or four places, then I’m not sure if it’ll really mean that much in terms of, you know, the eyes of employers. Um, so overall, you know, slight drops, I don’t think it would matter that much.I mean, you know, obviously still has tremendous reach in terms of its alumni program and other programs to international reach. So ultimately, I don’t think it’ll matter much.
Hayley Block is a junior at USC. She believes the rankings don’t affect the prestige and reputation of the university either.
Hayley Block: I mean I don’t really care. I don’t know whether it’s based on. The alumni is very like there’s a lot of positive, uh, I guess, connotations around it. Um, I don’t know, when you tell somebody you go to USC, they’re like, Oh wow, that’s really good. I still think the prestige and the reputation is still there.
However some students are not clear about how U.S. News determines the rankings or what specific changes happened to the methodology this year.
Tatiana Melguizo is a professor at the USC Rossier School of Education.
Tatiana Melguizo: The clue is that there has been a lot of pushback against the old rankings because you are just valuing that these institutions are very selective and they select the best students that they will graduate no matter what. And they would take the best faculty that would mostly be focusing on research instead of teaching. So the rankings change in order for there to be a lot of push towards these changes.
Professor Melguizo says this year, U.S. News updated the criteria for calculating university scores. They introduced a new metric accounting for the graduation rates of first-generation college students. The weighting for graduation rate performance and the student-faculty ratio were both increased, as was the emphasis on the graduation rates for Pell Grant recipients, who are students receiving federal financial aid due to low-income backgrounds.
Tatiana Melguizo: So what I think happens is that they are trying to find indirect measures of whether the students a, let’s say that you come from a family that was like at the median, a income average in the U.S. and then they want to see if they can estimate their earnings and they can abstract the cost of location. And they want to see if indeed getting that degree translated into higher earnings and potential increase in the socioeconomic structure of that fund. What I would emphasize is that the rankings change in order to identify whether the institution is really bringing talent and providing the education and support for these students to graduate on time, get a job and are not drowning in debt.
Professor Melguizo believes the change in U.S. News’ ranking method and USC’s drop in rankings this year should prompt USC to think about how to better support its students.
Tatiana Melguizo: My hope is that USC, instead of trying to become more selective and select less students, they’re going to be more mindful and they’re going to take advantage of the talent of, you know, Pell eligible students and really create the conditions to increase the number of students that are admitted and to support them so they graduate on time. They have outcomes that are recognized in the job market and that they are in the USC, serving as an engine of opportunity instead of an engine of sustaining privilege.
For Annenberg Media, I’m Lifan Zhang.