April 8, 2025 | NEWS | By Sydney McGarr (News Editor)
Colorado College Interim President Manya Whitaker announced that the school plans to reenter the U.S. News and World Report rankings this spring.
In an April 8 email to the campus community, Whitaker said the decision “reflects the realities of today’s higher education landscape.”
Colorado College withdrew from the rankings in March 2023, under a former president, citing “criteria antithetical to our values and our aspirational goals.”
A statement from then-President L. Song Richardson, who left the college after roughly two-and-a-half years, said the college believed that the U.S. News and World Report rankings emphasize wealth, standardized test scores, and institutional reputation, which encourage behaviors that conflict with CC’s goals surrounding accessibility, anti-racism and sustainability.
At the time, the move made national news, drawing a headline in the Wall Street Journal. The school, the WSJ reported, was the “highest-ranked liberal-arts college to stop cooperating with powerful ranking” at the time.
The U.S. News and World Report ranking is widely regarded as one of the most influential institution rankings in the country, beginning in 1983. The rankings have stirred up controversy in recent years, with some critics claiming they distill the values of colleges and universities to a composite number that is often based on data that is manipulated by the schools themselves.
The institution released its 2025 Best Colleges Rankings in September 2024. The top three were Princeton University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard University.
Whitaker said in her email that the decision to rejoin the rankings is based on greater insight into the importance of the data to the Colorado College community and cited three key factors supporting the decision: visibility and recognition, access and opportunity, and talent attraction and retention.
She emphasized that the school’s reappearance in the rankings could attract new students and families that are otherwise unaware of Colorado College’s status.
“Many prospective students and families—especially those without extensive social and cultural capital to inform their decision—rely on rankings to navigate the college search process,” she said.
Furthermore, Whitaker said, prospective faculty take rankings into account when deciding on potential employment at the college.
“By reentering the USNWR rankings, we enhance our ability to recruit and retain exceptional teacher-scholars and dedicated staff who are drawn to institutions recognized for academic excellence, student success, and innovation,” her email read.
Some Colorado College students said they were conflicted about the decision. On one hand, some said rejoining could be a crucial step to increase the college’s visibility.
“I myself went on those rankings when I was looking at schools,” said Benn Wheeler ‘27. “Whether we like it or not, they do play a role in many student’s college searches.”
Other students said they see the issue as being more nuanced.
“I think that in the last year, with all of the campus activism, we’ve seen a lot of requests from the student body for the administration to live up to our shared values as a community,” said Asher Porad ‘27. “Potentially, us rejoining the rankings is shifting our values a little,”
On the flip side of the argument, he acknowledged the important role that the rankings play in community outreach.
Regarding Whitaker’s emphasis on the rankings increasing our ability to hire exceptional staff, Porad said, “I understand that it is important for us to be able to get the professors that we need and for our graduates to get the recognition they deserve.”
The U.S. News and World Report has not announced the release date for the 2026 rankings, which could now include Colorado College. They typically release the findings in late September.