Columbia under scrutiny for allegedly submitting false info to rankings site
The move came in response to allegations by Michael Thaddeus, professor of mathematics at Columbia, that the university was submitting false information to the site.
Discrepancies were found in statistics related class sizes, education level of faculty, and how much the university spends on instruction.
On June 30, Columbia University announced it will not be submitting data to US News & World Report for its upcoming college rankings. The move came in response to March 16 allegations by Michael Thaddeus, professor of mathematics at Columbia, that the university was submitting false information to the site.
In previous years, Columbia appeared among the top three universities in the country on U.S. News. Currently, however, the website has removed the university from previous rankings pending further investigation into the allegations.
Thaddeus initially published his analysis of the inaccurate numbers on his faculty website in February, with subsequent revisions made in March.
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Thaddeus told The Chronicle of Higher Education that he identified multiple discrepancies between the data Columbia reported to U.S. News and the information he found on internal class and faculty directories.
Discrepancies were found in statistics related class sizes, education level of faculty, and how much the university spends on instruction.
A few of these discrepancies were especially noteworthy.
Thaddeus notes that while Columbia reported that “82.5% of its undergraduate classes have under 20 students,” his investigations into the raw data available in the Directory of Classes indicated that the true number “probably lies somewhere between 62.7% and 66.9%.”
“We can be quite confident that it is nowhere near the figure of 82.5% claimed by Columbia,” he concluded.
A similar discrepancy was found regarding faculty education level. According to Thaddeus, Columbia reported that 100% of its “full-time faculty have a Ph.D. or terminal degree.” But after analyzing data from the university’s website, Thaddeus discovered that at least 66 faculty members had only a bachelor’s or master’s degree.
Columbia officials have disputed these claims, but in Provost Mary Boyce’s June 30 announcement on behalf of the university, she states that they are “now closely reviewing our processes in light of the questions raised.”
Campus Reform reached out to Professor Thaddeus, Mary Boyce, Sarah Brown (Chronicle Article Author), Rutgers University, Anemona Hartocollis (New York Times Article Author). This article will be updated accordingly.
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