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Why Colleges Are Leaving The U.S. News Rankings : 1A For 40 years, U.S. News and World Report has released rankings of the nation's top colleges, universities, and graduate schools. They've been used in advertising materials for schools and showcased in the national media. But in recent months, dozens of the nation's top-ranked institutions have stopped providing data to the publication.

Yale University Law School was the top law school in the country in the U.S. News ranking for years, then chose to stop cooperating in November of last year.

Forty more law schools, including 12 of the top 14 ranked in the country followed suit. Some undergraduate schools also decided they would no longer participate in the U.S. News and World Report rankings.

We discuss how important these rankings should be for prospective students.

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Why Colleges Are Leaving The U.S. News Rankings

Why Colleges Are Leaving The U.S. News Rankings

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Arizona State University graduate students are silhouetted during their graduation at Sun Devil Stadium. Joshua Lott/Getty Images hide caption

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Arizona State University graduate students are silhouetted during their graduation at Sun Devil Stadium.

Joshua Lott/Getty Images

For 40 years, U.S. News and World Report has released rankings of the nation's top colleges, universities, and graduate schools. They've been used in advertising materials for schools and showcased in the national media. But in recent months, dozens of the nation's top-ranked institutions have stopped providing data to the publication.

Yale University Law School was the top law school in the country in the U.S. News ranking for years. Dean Heather Gerken shocked many in higher education when she chose to stop cooperating in November of last year.

All of our peers should be providing full-tuition scholarships to those below the poverty line. And we should all, collectively, be training a generation to serve.  We provide an amazing number of our fellowships, about 15 percent of our graduating class is able to work on our dime. All of those students were counted as unemployed under U.S. News' scoring system. I realized it [the rankings] were having a terrible effect on legal education.

Forty more law schools, including 12 of the top 14 ranked in the country followed suit. Undergraduate schools, including the Rhode Island School of Design and Colorado College, also decided they would no longer participate in the U.S. News and World Report rankings.

How important should rankings be for prospective students?

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