U.S. News & World Report

About U.S. News & World Report

U.S. News & World Report is an American media company based in Washington, D.C., that publishes news, opinion, consumer advice, rankings, and analysis. It is best known today for its influential annual Best Colleges and Best Hospitals rankings, which are among the most watched — and most debated — institutional rankings in the United States. The company was formed in 1948 through the merger of two weekly publications: United States News, founded in 1933 by journalist David Lawrence, and World Report, which Lawrence founded in 1946. Today it operates primarily as a digital publisher at usnews.com, drawing tens of millions of monthly visitors — one ownership index put its average monthly visits above 52 million — with print editions limited to its signature ranking guides.

Origins: Two Magazines, One Merger

The roots of U.S. News & World Report reach back to 1933, when journalist David Lawrence founded United States News, a weekly publication covering national affairs. Lawrence started World Report in 1946 to cover international news, and in 1948 he merged the two into U.S. News & World Report. After the merger, Lawrence sold the magazine to its employees, beginning a long period of employee ownership that lasted from 1962 to 1984. Historically, the magazine developed a reputation as a serious, terse newsweekly — a competitor to Time and Newsweek with a somewhat more conservative editorial leaning and an aversion to sports, entertainment, and celebrity coverage.

The Zuckerman Era

In 1984, the magazine was purchased by Mortimer Zuckerman, a real estate investor and media proprietor who also owned the New York Daily News. The company, U.S. News & World Report, L.P., has remained privately held under Zuckerman's ownership ever since. Its editorial staff is based in Washington, D.C., while advertising, sales, and corporate operations have been run out of New York. Zuckerman's acquisition gave the magazine financial stability, but the 1980s and 1990s brought the same advertising and circulation pressures facing all print newsweeklies, setting the stage for the company's eventual transformation.

Going Digital

The company launched its website, usnews.com, in 1995, initially providing access to articles from the print edition. By the late 2000s, the print economics no longer worked: in June 2008, citing declines in magazine circulation and advertising, the company announced it would become a biweekly publication starting in January 2009, then quickly shifted again to monthly frequency. In 2010, U.S. News ceased printing its weekly news magazine entirely, transitioning to primarily web-based publishing. Since then, print has been reserved for its annual ranking editions — most notably the Best Colleges guide. In 2008 the company also expanded and revamped its online opinion section, including the Thomas Jefferson Street blog.

The Best Colleges Rankings

The franchise that defines U.S. News today is the Best Colleges ranking, first published in 1983. It has been described as the most influential institutional ranking in American higher education. The rankings compare colleges and universities on measures including graduation and retention rates, faculty resources, admissions selectivity, financial resources, alumni giving, and peer assessments. They have been joined by Best Global Universities, Best Graduate Schools, Best Online Programs, and Best High Schools (first published in 2007, using state test scores, performance of poor and minority students, and Advanced Placement results). The rankings' popularity has drawn sustained criticism from college administrations, educators, and students, who argue the methodology rewards wealth and prestige and encourages gamesmanship — but they remain headline news every year.

The Best Hospitals Rankings

U.S. News began publishing hospital rankings in 1990 under the name "America's Best Hospitals," with rankings within each specialty starting in 1993. Produced with methodology from RTI International, the Best Hospitals rankings evaluate nearly 5,000 medical centers across 16 adult specialties — from Cancer to Urology — combining structural measures, process indicators including a physician reputation survey, and outcomes data such as risk-adjusted mortality from Medicare claims. The annual Honor Roll of top hospitals is a major event in American healthcare, and the company licenses its rankings badges to the hospitals it ranks for use in promotional materials. Best Children's Hospitals rankings extend the franchise to pediatric care.

Coverage Beyond Rankings

While the rankings drive the brand, U.S. News publishes ongoing journalism and consumer advice across education, health, money, careers, travel, technology, and cars. Its consumer guides cover topics like retirement planning, student loans, mortgages, Medicare, and auto buying. The company also runs U.S. News Live, a conferences division hosting events on national conversations such as the Healthcare of Tomorrow and the Workforce of Tomorrow. In 2018 it launched the Best States rankings, evaluating all 50 states on measures including health care, education, economy, and infrastructure.

Best High Schools, Best States, and More

The rankings empire extends well beyond colleges and hospitals. U.S. News published its first list of the nation's best high schools in 2007, ranking schools on state test scores, the performance of poor and minority students, and success in Advanced Placement exams. In 2018 the company launched Best States, an annual evaluation of all 50 states across categories including health care, education, the economy, infrastructure, and quality of life. Other franchises include Best Cars, Best Cruise Lines, Best Nursing Homes, and Best Places to Retire — each extending the company's data-driven consumer-advice model into a new vertical. Older readers may remember the magazine's "Who Runs America?" features, periodic attempts to map the nation's power structures that were a signature of the print era.

Controversy and Criticism

Few media rankings have attracted as much scrutiny as those of U.S. News. The Best Colleges rankings in particular have been denounced by education experts and university leaders who argue they rely on self-reported and sometimes unreliable institutional data, imply a false precision in ordinal rankings, contribute to admissions frenzy, and penalize institutions with missions that diverge from the ranking's criteria. Columbia University's 2022 withdrawal from the rankings spotlighted concerns about data accuracy. The company has periodically revised its methodology in response — for example, increasing the weight of social mobility measures — and defends the rankings as a valuable consumer tool for students and families navigating a complex marketplace.

Ownership and Leadership

U.S. News & World Report, L.P. remains privately owned by Mortimer Zuckerman. Day-to-day leadership includes Eric Gertler as chief executive officer, alongside co-presidents and an editorial director overseeing the newsroom's journalism and rankings products. The company's headquarters functions are split between Washington, D.C., where the editorial staff works, and New York, where advertising and sales are based. Unlike publicly traded media companies, the private ownership structure has allowed the company to pursue its rankings-driven business model without quarterly shareholder pressure.

Business Model

The modern U.S. News generates revenue through advertising, lead generation, licensing, and conferences. Its most distinctive revenue stream is licensing: schools, hospitals, and other institutions pay to use the U.S. News badges and rankings data in their marketing. The company's rankings content also drives enormous search-engine traffic, with tens of millions of monthly visitors arriving through queries about colleges, hospitals, cars, and travel. This SEO-driven audience model replaced the subscription-and-newsstand economics of the old newsweekly, turning the company into one of America's largest digital publishers in the education and health verticals.

Legacy in American Journalism

For most of the twentieth century, U.S. News & World Report stood alongside Time and Newsweek as one of the three great American newsweeklies. Its transformation from a print weekly into a digital rankings powerhouse is one of the more remarkable reinventions in modern media. Where its old rivals faltered — Newsweek suspended print in 2012 before relaunching — U.S. News found a new identity as a consumer-information brand. Its name, now attached to college guidebooks, hospital honor rolls, and state rankings, is arguably more recognizable today than it was at the height of the newsweekly era. For better or worse, its rankings have reshaped how Americans choose colleges and hospitals, making U.S. News & World Report a case study in how legacy media can survive by becoming something new.