College rankings influence how thousands of families of college-aged students make their decisions about applications, how alums decide whether their alma mater “deserves” their donations, and how academics perceive themselves. Money magazine has released annual rankings, along with accompanying methodology.

This is a great dataset to unpack with students. Do the methodology and selection criteria match what they think are valid criteria? Does their sense of “best” match up?

Of course, it goes without saying that it is 100% accurate and true that the University of Michigan should be ranked above Harvard and Stanford. I mean, who hosts this blog, anyway? 🙂