After Submitting False Data To U.S. News For 9 Years, USC Ordered To Certify Accuracy Of Its Data In Future Rankings

Following up on my previous posts:

• USC Pulls Ed School Out Of U.S. News Graduate School Rankings; Jones Day Is Investigating 5 Years Of Inaccurate Data (Mar. 24, 2022)
• Jones Day Finds USC Dean Intentionally Reported False Data To U.S. News To Goose Its Ranking (Apr. 30, 2022)

Robert Morse (Chief Data Strategist, U.S. News), U.S. News Responds to University of Southern California Education School on Misreporting (June 7, 2022):

U.S. News & World Report has recently been informed by the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education that "for several years, USC Rossier had been inaccurately reporting data on research and student enrollment to USNWR."

U.S. News is reviewing the various disclosures made by the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education with respect to this misreporting, which are included in the recently published investigative report by the law firm Jones Day.

The Jones Day report said, "From at least 2013 to 2021, the School misreported data to US News about the selectivity of its doctoral programs." In addition the report said, "While this investigation focused on the School’s reporting of doctoral selectivity metrics, Jones Day confirmed during the course of the investigation the existence of irregularities in the School’s calculation and reporting of research expenditures, and identified other potential data misreporting issues, such as issues relating to the exclusion of online EdD programs, the designation of EdD students as part-time, certain faculty-related metrics, and the School’s reporting of teacher job placement and retention statistics."

In light of these findings, U.S. News will require the Rossier School of Education’s dean or top academic, the University of Southern California's president and the Chair of USC’s Board of Trustees to provide a letter certifying the accuracy of the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education's data submissions to U.S. News for the next three ranking cycles in order to be included in the rankings. ...

Click here to read the letter U.S. News sent to University of Southern California.

Daily Bruin, U.S. News & World Report Issues Letter to USC Following Ranking Misreports:

In a statement to the Daily Trojan Tuesday, the University said it reached out to U.S. News & World Report as soon as it learned about the matter and continues to work closely with the publication. No decision has been made about Rossier’s participation in future U.S. News graduate rankings.

“We have been diligently following up on the issues raised by Jones Day since their report was issued, and the Rossier School has already put in place a number of measures to ensure accuracy and promote greater transparency about decision making in the school,” the statement read.

Measures include posting data typically requested by rankings organizations on the Rossier website and creating a dean’s advisory council of students drawn from across the master’s and doctoral programs, the University said.