Academia's Red Light District

Academia's Red Light District

Here's an irony for you: Each year, the most prestigious universities in America—some of them founded long before our country—are ranked to great fanfare by the staff of a third-tier news magazine that has actually stopped its print edition. Its college ranking is pretty much all that's left of U.S. News and World Report—which is really a shame, since its reporting was always better than Time's or Newsweek's. I'm less thrilled about its rankings, which are heavily biased in favor of rich schools that are already famous, where teaching typically comes second to research—much of which is obscure or politically charged....