THE MARQUETTE FACULTY SAID THE QUIET PART OUT LOUD.

Evidently, being a pretty good basketball school isn't the most important selling point.  Between the women having no more children and the parents of the children they did have now paying a lot of money for glorified Skype, things are tough at Marquette University, and check out the first talkin point from the Faculty Council.

If Marquette does not remain in the top 100 schools in the U.S. News and World Report rankings, it may not be able to weather the storm of demographic transition. We are currently ranked at #88. Class-sizes, student debt ratio, and educational expenditures are all variables in USNWR rankings. USNWR has announced that it will increase the weight of the student debt ratio in factoring future rankings. Harm to this standing may take more than a decade to recover, and may further threaten the financial well-being of the university.

Oh, there is a diversity talking point as well. Sixth out of six on the list.  No recommendation to spend less on deanlets and deanlings there.

There are market tests in higher education, even if the people in charge don't like it, and it's amusing how much use people within the enterprise make of those U.S. News rankings while scorning them.