". . . we rank the schools on a combination of factors including student retention, faculty salary, and student/faculty ratio."
You think any of these factors help a regional state-supported school to achieve a high rank?
Student retention is a factor of the type of student attracted to the school. Whether or not a student has been expected all along by family to attend college and the knowledge that his attendance is not influenced by the ability to pay. Non-traditional students will of necessity hurt retention numbers. And we can easily surmise that those schools with high entrance requirements are also hard to "flunk" out of only in part by the type of student attracted. It doesn't look good to have students leave.
Faculty salary along with student/faculty ratio is influenced by both having professional schools and by the amount of research done.
As with most rankings of colleges and universities those so-called elite schools (the rich schools with endowments) will come out on top because of the factors inherent in the compilation of ranking.
