Today we would like to provide two rankings updates related to U.S. News & World Report.
 
Fox School of Business rankings
 
As you know, the university hired the nationally respected law firm Jones Day to review data and processes in the Fox School of Business for rankings survey submissions to U.S. News & World Report. The university shared the findings and recommendations from that review on July 9 and indicated that one finding of the review was evidence that the Fox School provided U.S. News with erroneous information relating to programs beyond the Online MBA.
 
The university has been carefully scrutinizing rankings data submissions to identify misreporting for other Fox programs. Although the review is ongoing, we have concluded that misreporting similar to that involving the Online MBA also occurred with respect to the Executive MBA, Global MBA, Part-Time MBA, Master of Science in Human Resource Management and Master of Science in Digital Innovation in Marketing. These programs all had issues related to the reporting of one or more metrics, including the number of new entrants providing GRE/GMAT scores, student indebtedness and applicants’ undergraduate GPAs. For the Online Bachelor of Business Administration, misreporting related to student indebtedness was found. As a result, we have reported to U.S. News that we cannot verify data related to these programs, and we are not participating in or submitting business school surveys at this time.
 
We want all the members of the university community to know that, with respect to the misreporting of information at the Fox School, you had a right to expect this information would be accurate and honest. We deeply regret that this did not happen. We will do more than own this problem. We will fix it. And none of this takes away from the quality education that our Fox School students receive, or from the excellent teaching and research of its faculty.
 
Temple University rankings
 
In a related update, U.S. News asked Temple to provide a letter verifying the accuracy of our data submissions for the 2018 and 2019 Best Colleges rankings. The university conducted a painstaking review of the voluminous data contained in these submissions. On July 20, Temple provided U.S. News with the requested letter, in which we verified the accuracy of our submissions for both the 2018 and 2019 rankings. We also made three corrections: one inadvertent transposition and two typographical errors. Additionally, we updated originally reported endowment information to ensure consistency in survey responses. U.S. News also had requested information on additional programs, and that review is underway.
 
In addition to verifying the data provided to U.S. News, we are also responding to ongoing inquiries from the U.S. Department of Education and the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office.
 
Our commitment
 
Integrity in the way we conduct and represent ourselves to the world is a fundamental value at Temple. The university is committed to the highest standards of accuracy in its data submissions to rankings organizations and has implemented rigorous new university-wide procedures to ensure this. As we said earlier this month, Temple is in contact with a number of agencies that have an interest in this matter. We are updating them as new information develops. We continue to diligently pursue the review of rankings data and will share additional updates.
 
We would also like to take this opportunity to thank the university staff who have been working so diligently in carefully reviewing thousands upon thousands of data elements in the Fox School and university-wide. It is through their tireless efforts that we are able to ensure we report proper information going forward, and can be open and transparent with all of you.   

Richard M. Englert
President

JoAnne A. Epps
Executive Vice President and Provost