Yale and Harvard law schools are throwing away the US news school rankings that many graduate students are obsessed with

Yale, which has ranked top every year, found the criteria to be “deeply flawed,” Dean Heather Gerken said Wednesday. The school will no longer participate in lists that “discourage programs that support public interest careers, advocate for need-based assistance and invite working-class students into the profession,” she said.

The rankings devalue programs that promote low-paying public interest jobs and reward schools that award scholarships for high LSAT scores rather than focusing on a student’s financial needs, Gerken said. And while Yale awards many more public interest grants per student than any other peer, she said: US News “seems to underestimate these invaluable opportunities to such an extent that these graduates are effectively classified as unemployed.”

This “backward approach is preventing law schools across the country from supporting students who dream of a career in ministry,” Gerken said in a post on the school’s website. The rankings also discourage graduates from pursuing advanced degrees, she said.

US News & World Report LP said Yale’s decision will not change its goals for the ranking, a prestigious benchmark for the nation’s top law schools.

“The US News Best Law Schools ranking is designed for students who are seeking the best legal education choice,” said Eric Gertler, executive chairman and chief executive officer.

“We will continue to fulfill our journalistic mission of ensuring students can rely on the best and most accurate information when making this decision,” Gertler said in a statement. “As part of our mission, we must continue to ensure that law schools are held accountable for the education they provide to these students, and that mission does not change with this latest announcement.”

Harvard, along with Yale, announced that they would withdraw from the rankings.

“It has become impossible to reconcile our principles and commitments with the methodology and incentives that US news rankings reflect,” Dean John F. Manning said in a statement on Harvard Law School’s website. “This decision was not taken lightly and was only made after careful consideration over the past few months.”

The “debt metric,” introduced by US News two years ago, “risks more confusion than information because a school can reduce debt at graduation by providing generous financial aid, but it can also achieve the same effect by providing more.” Allows students who have the means to avoid it to get credit,” Manning said. The school also said the methodology focuses too much on students’ test scores and college grades and undermines Harvard’s efforts to support careers of public interest for its graduates.

‘Affected’

At Stanford Law School, currently ranked #2, “we have long had a concern about the methodology of the US News Law School Rankings,” said spokeswoman Stephanie Ashe. The school will “carefully consider Yale’s objections,” Ashe said.

The University of Chicago Law School, ranked No. 3 by US News, and Columbia Law School, No. 4, declined to comment.

Yale isn’t the first to criticize US news rankings. Earlier this year, Professor Michael Thaddeus, a member of Columbia’s undergraduate faculty, questioned the accuracy of the data the university provided to US News. The school later admitted the data was inaccurate, and Columbia fell from 2nd to 18th in the rankings.

“The law deans have had these conversations with US News and things haven’t changed,” Gerken said in an interview. “That’s why now is the moment to take a step back. It is also a moment when institutions across the country are reflecting on the role of higher education in the world and our values.”

Gerken said she doesn’t know if US News will include Yale in the next ranking, but that there “won’t be a tremendous amount of our data.”

Ted Ruger, dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School, said he “salutes Yale Law for his leadership in answering key questions for all law schools by withdrawing from the US News & World Report rankings. While useful in some ways, the rankings do not provide a clear or complete view of institutional priorities for the education of future lawyers. We are evaluating this issue and assessing a process for our own decision-making.”

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