Universities should abandon school rankings

At Yale Law School, the school I lead, we ignore this ranking entirely to focus on our mission and the metrics that matter. Every other university leader should do the same.

For decades, academic leaders have engaged in a meaningless competition over U.S. News rankings, which released a confusing and erratic edition of law school rankings earlier this month. The only winner of the ongoing competition has been U.S. News, which makes an enormous amount of money by charging schools to buy marketing badges to advertise their rankings.

The clear losers of this silly competition: low-income students. Few people understand just how severely U.S. News rankings have undermined need-based financial aid in professional schools. The ranking has led schools to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars of merit-based scholarships into the hands of students with high scores but no proven financial need, boosting their rankings but draining crucial support away from the students who need it the most.

That’s why we chose to withdraw from the U.S. News rankings three years ago. More than 60 law schools followed our lead, jump-starting a long-overdue conversation on initiatives that improve our students’ lives.

A recent survey of law school admissions officers and research studies suggests that U.S. News law school rankings are declining in importance. Universities should commit to no longer participating in the rankings or making decisions with the rankings in mind. Functionally, the largest effect would be freeing schools to direct more dollars to students in financial need.

Roughly 350,000 students are enrolled right now in medical, law, and business schools. But a 2011 study showed that just 2 percent of students at the top 20 law schools came from the bottom socioeconomic quartile of the population. In 2023, first-generation students comprised approximately 2.66% of the total medical school enrollment. Financial data from the American Bar Association showed that law schools pumped $230 million into merit scholarships over a five-year period while allocating only a tenth of that, $23 million, to students with demonstrated financial need. Today, the ABA does not even collect those numbers — a problem in and of itself, and one we are working to fix.

If we don’t reshape how financial aid works, the next generation of lawyers, doctors, and chief executives will be drawn almost entirely from wealthy families. Talented low-income students will be left behind.

Students from working-class backgrounds look at the high cost of JDs, MBAs, and MDs and simply turn away. I’ve seen it firsthand. For them, debt is a family matter, and students refuse to add another dollar to their families’ burdens. Even when these students are lucky enough to get financial aid, they do anything they can to avoid taking out another loan. They don’t go home for Thanksgiving. They don’t buy their textbooks. Many take on part-time jobs, all so they can send money home to their families. These students don’t have a safety net. They are their families’ safety net. How is it that professional schools neglect these students for the sake of a foolish ranking?

Undergraduate institutions have made admirable strides in increasing financial aid for low-income students with outside support and partnerships. This spring, Harvard University announced it will offer free tuition to undergraduates whose families make $200,000 or less. Mike Bloomberg’s American Talent Initiative is boosting Pell Grant enrollment by calling on colleges and universities to embrace low-income and working-class students. The Gates Scholarship provides outstanding Pell Grant-eligible high school seniors with funds to go to college.

Unfortunately, professional schools like medical, law, and business schools lag far behind. They need to break down the financial barriers that stand in the way of students from low-income backgrounds.

First, let’s remove money as an obstacle for students attending professional school. The schools of medicine at Montefiore Einstein and Johns Hopkins are using billion-dollar gifts to eliminate tuition for medical school students. Harvard Business School announced need-based aid for MBA students in 2022.

Yale is the first law school in the country to provide full-tuition scholarships to the students who need it most. Fifteen percent of our students attend tuition-free — a savings for each recipient of more than $72,000 per year. I’m proud that Harvard Law School, Stanford Law School, Washington University School of Law, and other schools have followed suit. It’s time for everyone to join us.

Second, let’s meet students where they are. Low-income students often arrive at professional school without the networks and training they need to thrive. We all need to provide targeted professional development, career advancement opportunities, and mentorship programs. Programs like the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business’s Accelerator Scholars Program, Stanford Medicine’s 1st Generation Mentorship Program, and Yale Law’s Tsai Leadership Program provide the mentorship and advice necessary to ensure students who traveled so far to get to professional school find their way forward.

It’s time to leave U.S. News & World Report behind once and for all. These are serious times for higher education. So let’s raise the bar beyond these silly rankings and focus on what actually matters: opening our doors to the most talented students on the planet.