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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial |
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ARTICLE VIEW: |
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Columbia to pay $9 million to settle lawsuit over U.S. News college |
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ranking |
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By Reuters |
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Updated: |
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9:22 PM EDT, Tue July 1, 2025 |
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Source: Reuters |
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Columbia University agreed to pay $9 million to settle a proposed class |
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action by students who claimed it submitted false data to boost its |
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position in U.S. News & World Report’s influential college rankings. |
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A preliminary settlement, which requires a judge’s approval, was |
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filed on Monday in Manhattan federal court. |
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Students said Columbia artificially inflated its U.S. News ranking for |
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undergraduate schools, reaching No. 2 in 2022, by consistently |
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reporting false data, including that 83% of its classes had fewer than |
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20 students. |
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They said the misrepresentations enticed them to enroll and allowed |
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Columbia to overcharge them on tuition. |
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The settlement covers about 22,000 undergraduate students at Columbia |
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College, Columbia Engineering and Columbia’s School of General |
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Studies from the fall of 2016 to the spring of 2022. |
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Lawyers for the students called the accord fair, reasonable and |
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adequate. Columbia denied wrongdoing in agreeing to settle. |
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The university said in a statement that it “deeply regrets |
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deficiencies in prior reporting,” and now provides prospective |
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students with reviewed by an independent advisory firm to ensure they |
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receive accurate information about their education. |
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The litigation began in July 2022, after Columbia math professor |
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Michael Thaddeus a report alleging that data underlying the school’s |
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No. 2 ranking were inaccurate or misleading. Columbia’s ranking |
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dropped to No. 18 that September. |
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In June 2023, Columbia said its undergraduate schools would in U.S. |
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News’ rankings. |
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It said the rankings appeared to have “outsized influence” with |
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prospective students, and “much is lost” in distilling education |
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quality from a series of data points. |
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Some other universities, including Harvard and Yale, also stopped |
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submitting data to U.S. News for various schools. U.S. News also ranks |
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graduate schools. |
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Lawyers for the Columbia students plan to seek up to one-third of the |
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settlement for legal fees, leaving about $6 million for the students. |
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