What percent of a college’s faculty are full time? It is generally accepted that full time professors are more likely to do a better job of teaching. That is one of the reasons that US News in their college rankings asks colleges what percent of faculty are full time. The higher the percent, the higher your ranking. It seems like a pretty simple calculation.
But like much of the US News college rankings, the percent of full time faculty is subject to manipulation. Inside Higher Ed recently discussed the process by which some colleges artificially exclude certain faculty to make their numbers look better.
Here is how it works. Many large universities report more than 80% of their faculty are full time when in fact they are ignoring adjunct professors in counting the numbers for US News. The University of Nebraska reports 100% of their faculty is full time for US News but the actual number of full time teachers at Nebraska is 79%.
So what you may ask. The college manipulates data, they get caught and US News adjusts their rankings. Right? Actually, it turns out that US News doesn’t care if colleges make up statistics like this. They have said that they won’t adjust the numbers just because some schools give false information.
And people still believe the US News rankings why?
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