Overview

• Students alleged that Columbia inflated its U.S. News ranking to No. 2 in 2022 by misreporting metrics such as class sizes, which they say led to inflated tuition costs.
• The settlement extends to about 22,000 former undergraduates at Columbia College, Columbia Engineering and the School of General Studies who enrolled from fall 2016 to spring 2022.
• Columbia has denied any misconduct and will not admit wrongdoing as part of the deal.
• In response to the scandal, the university withdrew from U.S. News rankings in 2023 and now publishes data sets reviewed by an independent advisory firm.
• The litigation began after Professor Michael Thaddeus exposed discrepancies in 2022, and Columbia’s ranking fell to No. 18 later that year.