The reworked formula assigned greater emphasis to graduation rates for students who received need-based Pell grants and retention. It also introduced metrics tied to first-generation college students and to whether recent graduates were earning more than people who had completed only high school. Occupying the ranking’s middle rungs meant that shifts in methodology, like the removal of alumni giving as a criterion, could easily fuel dramatic rises and falls. Schools have said that the rankings have an outsize influence on students and parents, who use them as a proxy for prestige. 29, among liberal arts colleges.

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Persons: Pell, Song Richardson, haven’t, ”, Richardson Organizations: . News, Schools, Colorado College