Do university rankings really matter? NC State trustees discuss.
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Trustees debated rankings after NC State’s mixed placements and differing methods.
- Officials said focus on core improvements, not reacting to ranking shifts.
- UNC merges data and library schools; NC Central reintroduces an ASL class.
Hello subscribers! Happy Tuesday. I’m Jane Winik Sartwell, here with this week’s edition of Higher Stakes.
Last week, I attended the NC State Board of Trustees meeting — read on for an interesting tidbit from that. This week, the UNC System Board of Governors meets. They’re expected to vote on hot-button issues like academic freedom and tuition hikes. Plus, there are some exciting new programs at UNC-Chapel Hill and NC Central.
How much do university rankings really matter?
As the NC State trustees ate lunch during their Wednesday meeting, they listened to a presentation on how NC State fared in three major university rankings. The conversation afterward was spirited — it was easily the most riveting moment of the two-day meeting.
They looked at U.S. News and World Report, where NC State ranks 64 among national universities; the Wall Street Journal, where it ranks 176 among U.S. universities, and QS, where it ranks 272 among universities across the globe.
Each publication uses different data collection methodologies, considerations and category weights, making it difficult to compare or extract meaningful conclusions from the rankings, said McKinney Austin, interim vice provost for university data and analytics. The majority of prospective students don’t even consult them, he said.
The best way to improve NC State’s ranking is just to focus on the things they are working to improve anyway and not respond directly to NC State’s weaknesses in one ranking or another, Austin said.
Some trustees said the rankings are utterly arbitrary and hardly worth giving the time of day. Provost Warwick Arden said the “reputation” category is especially stagnant and meaningless, due to publications’ methods of asking deans and provosts what they think of other schools. Most, including Arden himself, will just choose whatever score they chose last year for the school, because they aren’t sure what to say.
“This is a fascinating lens at public information, and it just speaks to how public information can be misleading,” said one trustee.
Board chair Ed Stack responded, saying that if NC State ranked No. 1, or even in the top 10, the trustees wouldn’t be saying these numbers are arbitrary. Instead, they’d say the rankings were entirely accurate and an amazing reflection of the school.
Trustee Ghazale Johnston had a measured take: even if the rankings don’t mean much, trustees need to understand them and be able to speak intelligently about why they do or don’t matter to donors, and respond to headlines that will inevitably surface about NC State’s performance.
Chancellor Kevin Howell was impassioned by the conversation, and closed the lunch with an impromptu speech about the impact of NC State on students and the state at large.
“Our goals are first for our students ... by just signing up to be a part of NC State are going out and changing the world,” Howell said. “That’s the goal that gets me really excited. As I look around this table, many of us came from rural North Carolina, and now we have the opportunities that we have now. To me, that’s the exciting point.”
Pushback on rankings has been making national headlines as well. The National Association of Deans and Directors of Schools of Social Work led a boycott of U.S. News’ rankings of master’s programs in social work because of the publication’s focus on reputation over student outcomes. The publication didn’t publish their rankings this year, and is waiting until 2027 to resume.
What to expect from UNC System Board of Governors
Here are some of the more interesting points to watch for from the UNC Board of Governors meeting later this week:
- The board will vote on a new policy on academic freedom, which includes a definition that limits the scope of the concept. Because there have been some revisions to the definition, it won’t be part of the consent agenda, but rather pulled out for a discussion as well as a vote.
- The board will likely authorize tuition hikes for in-state students for the first time in nine years at nearly all UNC System schools. Board chair Wendy Murphy wrote about why in The N&O Monday.
- The board will review plans for NC State’s Cates West redevelopment and for housing projects at Chapel Hill.
- The board will take a look at civil discourse initiatives happening across campuses and discuss how to prioritize the healthy exchange of ideas.
- The system has seen 45% savings from cost avoidance strategies, shared-service administrative models and outsourcing.
- The system salary base increased by 29% between 2022 and 2026. Turnover rates remain healthy.
- The system saw record-high enrollment at 10 schools in Fall 2025. Enrollment was up 3% from the year before at 256,530 students.
The board will meet Wednesday and Thursday at the system’s temporary headquarters in downtown Raleigh.
A new identity for data science at UNC-CH
UNC-Chapel Hill is merging its School of Data Science and Society and the School of Information and Library Science to form the new School of Data and Information Sciences. It will launch July 1. I spoke with the deans of both schools — Stan Ahalt of SDSS and Diane Kelly of SILS — about the future of their programs and what students and faculty will gain from the merger.
The school will blend library-focused, archival work and the data science work of statistics, computing and analysis under a single banner, a move Ahalt said will knit these two related disciplines and expand learning opportunities for students.
“It’s a pivotal moment in our society, particularly for the impact of technology on all we do, as far as improvements to life, and new opportunities for creativity and innovation and workforce development,” Ahalt said. “Because information and data is becoming so important to society, we also have issues that have been created around ethics and economic systems. Carolina has a significant responsibility to meet this moment. That’s the reason the new school was put together in this new way.”
While the term “library” is dropped from the new school name, Kelly says the study and practice of librarianship isn’t going anywhere at UNC. It will be a priority at the new school.
“Librarianship is very much focused on public service, and it’s focused on helping people get access to information no matter how much money they make, no matter what level of education they have,” Kelly said. “Ultimately, that represents what librarianship is about: giving people access to information, not making judgments about what they should know or what they need to know, but allowing them to make up their own minds and determine their own futures.”
Ahalt and Kelly said they are currently on a faculty hiring spree for the new school.
Sign language comes back to NC Central
Students can once again study American Sign Language at NC Central. The university says there’s an urgent workforce gap in the interpreter profession: there are more than 1.3 million North Carolinians currently experiencing some level of hearing loss, and nationally, there’s a ratio of 50 deaf Americans to just one ASL interpreter. In response, NC Central is reintroducing a class on sign language.
“Inside this classroom, students are immersing themselves in Deaf culture, the history of Deaf education in North Carolina, Black ASL, ASL grammar, fingerspelling and the broader social impact of language access,” reads a release from the school. “For many students, the course is opening doors to careers in healthcare, education, law, social work and public service; fields where the demand for ASL fluency has never been greater.”
Today at 1 p.m., the school is offering a public class on the importance of ASL and what they hope will be the course’s significance.
Headlines you don’t want to miss
- NC candidate fired from community college after calling Charlie Kirk racist by me
- UNC overhauls approach to comms, finance, IT, HR. What we know and what we don’t by me
- UNC System board will vote on these hotly debated issues this week by me
- These NC colleges are among the most beautiful in the U.S. Why they made the cut by me
- Why UNC athletics ran a significant deficit in 2025, despite record revenue by Shelby Swanson
- Inside UNC athletics’ Smith Center location debate: ‘We’ve got to get it right’ by Shelby Swanson
- NC State faces athletic deficit. Details of the budget, efforts to add revenue by Jadyn Watson-Fisher
- Chapel Hill to consider hundreds of new homes, daycare at Wednesday meeting by Tammy Grubb
- Does beating Michigan make the Duke Blue Devils the nation’s No. 1 team? by Chip Alexander
What I’m reading
- Duke ends partnership with The PhD Project after Title VI investigation by Claire Cranford at The Duke Chronicle
- Amid crashes and close calls, UNC loosens e-scooter restrictions on campus by Suhas Nittoor at The Daily Tar Heel
- Aging systems, difficulty sourcing parts contribute to persistent University elevator outages by Victoria Deal at The Daily Tar Heel
- NC State faculty and students call for reinstatement of LGBTQ Pride Center staffer by Jasmine Gallup at INDY
- Multiple Shaw buildings fail fire inspection; School responds as students question campus conditions by Akilah Davis at ABC-11
- UNC student group illuminates administration’s opaque decisions by Emma Whitford at Inside Higher Ed
- The Heritage Foundation drove Trump’s 2025 higher-ed agenda. What’s its plan for 2026? by Rick Seltzer at The Chronicle of Higher Education
Thanks for sticking with me. Later this week, I’ll be bringing you news from the UNC Board of Governors meetings, plus NC State and UNC-Chapel Hill faculty councils. Stay tuned.
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– Jane Winik Sartwell
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