Best Colleges Ranking Analysis

Most families still depend on data to determine the top colleges that are right for their children, even though it is difficult to put a price on all the intangibles that help or hurt college experiences. Every parent desires the best academic value for their money for the school their child attends, but there are so many options that it’s difficult for parents to compare them all carefully. As a result, “U.S. News” has been publishing a list of “Best Colleges” over the years, which has established itself as a crucial place to start when looking for a school. These rankings help stakeholders in the education sector to conduct a quick comparison of the quality of institutions. The 2016 Best Colleges Ranking is an epitome of the factors that “U.S News” examines before formulating their list. The analysts place the greatest emphasis on undergraduate academic reputation and graduation and retention rate each at 22.5%. Further, excellent schools are ranked depending on their faculty resources, students’ preferences, financial resources, graduation rate, and alumni giving, each with an influential power of 20.5%, 12.5%, 10.5%, 7.5%, and 5.0% respectively.

For Question 5

While institutions of learning expect students to be thoroughly honest in their studies and presentation of findings, academic dishonesty has become a global phenomenon. Every day, thousands of learners in different educational levels engage in academic malpractices for various reasons. Some of these causes include laziness, limited time, and inadequate literacy levels in particular disciplines. Although the culture of academic dishonesty dates back to about a decade, its scope and size have significantly changed. Unlike in the past where buying academic test papers were the common academic crime, students are now paying for an entirely online course. Given the ever-increasing number of students willing to cheat in their studies, the cheating business has proven to be highly lucrative. Some of the factors facilitating this unethical behavior are lack of commitment from schools to stop this trend, availability of cheating websites, the ability of cheating-companies to cover their tracks, and lack of adequate financial, technological, and human resources to fight the vice.