Education Secretary Miguel Cardona advocated for schools to join a slew of colleges that are ditching a prestigious ranking system, Inside Higher Ed reported.
Cardona told college leaders not to worship “the false altar” of U.S. News & World Report’s ranking system during a conference hosted by Yale and Harvard on Wednesday in Cambridge, Massachusetts, according to Inside Higher Ed. Both law schools dropped from the ranking in November 2022 and are only two of a number of schools taking part in a mass exodus from the system and citing equity concerns.
“Harvard and Yale Law could have wiped your hands clean of the ranking and called it a day. Instead, and really importantly, you’re here bringing leaders together to talk about what comes next. It’s not enough to abandon a broken system,” Cardona said. “The real work is building a better one for everyone. And you’re taking the lead on that.”
Cardona’s Wednesday remarks were directed at colleges in general, not only law schools, Inside Higher Ed reported. A number of medical schools including Harvard, Columbia and Stanford withdrew earlier this year.
He said that both Yale and Harvard’s law schools “thrived” long before they were ranked by U.S. News & World Report, Inside Higher Ed reported. He then alleged that the rankings do not address problems that lead to 60% of Black students and 50% of Latino students not graduating and that it would be up to the colleges, not the government, to find solutions.
“If it costs you a spot on the rankings, wear it like a badge of honor,” he said.
Yale Law School withdrew from the rankings because the report encourages merit-based scholarship over need-based scholarship and does not reward schools for helping low-income students. Harvard Medical School, which withdrew in January, cited “philosophical” concerns with how the rankings are conducted.
U.S. News & World Report’s methodology for medical schools includes analyzing factors such as peer assessments, residency directors assessments, test scores, acceptance rate and student grade point averages, according to its website. The law school methodology weighs similar factors.
U.S. News & World Report published a letter to Cardona Wednesday morning ahead of his speech to call on schools to increase transparency by publishing more data for potential applicants to consider such as financial and admission data, outcome statistics and employment rate.
“We at U.S. News believe that every student deserves access to high quality, transparent and reliable information about their education,” the letter read. “We hope that you will join us in our efforts to promote greater transparency and accountability in higher education and work to ensure that all students have the information they need to succeed.”
The Department of Education did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. U.S. News & World Report referred to its letter.
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