How much fluctuation is there from year to year? And how much do they change over a longer time span? I looked back at the rankings for the past 25 years, and I was struck at the persistence of the “best” colleges. The Top 30 US News Best National Universities from 1996-2020

Below are the U.S. News rankings from 1983 through 2007 for 57 leading national universities. For additional U.S. News rankings, please see U.S. News Rankings, 2008 through 2015, and Average U.S. News Rankings for 129 National Universities, 2011 to 2018. Especially notable in the list below are the changes in major public universities.

1967 Topics Business & Economics, Magazines, microfilm Publisher US News & World Report Collection pub_us-news-weekly-special-issues; sim_microfilm; periodicals Contributor Internet Archive Language English Volume 63 Item Size 293.2M

1988 – Marked the beginning of the annual publishing of rankings and a book length college guide, America’s Best Colleges, which was more in-depth. 1992 – College rankings scholar, David Webster, says that U.S. News is the best ranking ever published.

I found a copy of the first Gourman Report from 1967. It includes LACs and rates colleges on an 800 point scale. I wanted to see how the Gourman Report ratings have changed over the years. The numerical ratings often changed a little from 1967 to 1997 but usually not enough to change the rank significantly.