If uni rankings are useful at all, it's not on reputation. We could use rankings on (say) % of students on financial aid; % of faculty tenured or tenure-track; % of tenured faculty who are women, minorities; ratio of teachers to administrators; ratio of avg faculty salary to head football coach salary…
@petersuber@academicchatter And maybe we could share such data with some public institution or university consortia, rather than giving them away to sellers of "rankings" (or of snake oil?)
From Chris Brink: "It is not difficult to construct a university ranking. What is needed is not so much any technical skill as enough blind self-confidence to tell the world that the arbitrary choices you have made in constructing your ranking actually represent reality." https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20231024130858697