On Feb. 7, 2019 the U.S. News and World Report (USNWR) released an update on which previously ranked colleges for the 2019 year are now considered “Unranked,” due to misreporting of information by colleges. UCR’s Bourns College of Engineering (BCOE), previously ranked by USNWR’s as one of the “Best Engineering Schools,” is now unranked due to misreported research expenditures.
The Highlander reached out to BCOE Dean Christopher S. Lynch for further comment on the deranking. “The US News rankings are based on a comprehensive list of metrics that reporting institutions pull from a variety of sources,” Lynch stated. “In December 2018, while compiling this year’s metrics, we noticed a discrepancy in the research expenditures reported compared to the previous year.”
Initially, BCOE sent in “all research expenditures, as would be normal for annual reports and summaries of research,” according to Lynch. However, upon looking into the guidelines the text “showed that U.S. News and World Report had requested only external funding sources.” The update states that BCOE “originally submitted research expenditures for fiscal year 2017 of $68.3 million. The school informed U.S. News the correct value is $30.9.”
Lynch stated that BCOE will retain the “Unranked” status “until the publication of the next edition of the rankings, due to be released on March 12, 2019.”
