Every year, media entities such as US News, Princeton Review and Forbes release rankings of US colleges. These rankings carry significant weight as high school students, their parents, and counselors alike use and reference these rankings to inform their decisions on university choices – where to apply, which programs, etc.

Schools care about their rank. They spend a lot of their time, attention and funds trying to improve their ranking. Does this pursuit of higher rankings end up hurting diversity at their institution?

Diversity does not directly influence rankings, so the tangible incentive to improve and focus on diversity may not be there and in some cases, can actively punish an university for its diversity and inclusion efforts. 

Even with the enormous emphasis being put on diversity and inclusion by enrollment offices in colleges and universities over the past few years, national rankings actually hurt diversity for many reasons. 

Most publications do not take diversity into consideration when ranking universities. Thus, they do not provide any incentives for colleges/universities to implement more inclusive recruitment programs. 

Furthermore, graduation rate and standardized test scores get more weightage in rankings than any other factors. It has been widely known that Underrepresented minority (URM) students have, on average, lower standardized test scores and are statistically more likely to drop out than a typical student from school. Therefore, centering rankings on either criterion acts as a catalyst for schools to refrain from enrolling too many URM students.

National rankings are a good indicator to gauge the university’s strengths. But oftentimes rankings can create disincentives for adding diversity on campus.