Temple Fined $700,000 in Rankings Scandal

Education Department says the university’s business school lied to U.S. News repeatedly — to gain No. 1 spot in online rankings and to attract students.

Temple University will pay the U.S. Education Department $700,000 to settle the department’s complaints about the way the university lied to U.S. News & World Report for years about the online M.B.A. offered by its Fox School of Business, in a successful effort to obtain top rankings and to attract students.

The university lied about scores on the Graduate Management Admission Test, the grade point averages of admitted students and other key factors. Temple did not admit guilt but has admitted to most of the facts set out by the Education Department.

“The department believes this information, including, inter alia, (1) the number of Fox School entrants providing GMAT scores as part of the application process, (2) the mean undergraduate G.P.A.s of students admitted to certain programs offered by the Fox School, (3) the number of offers of admission extended by the Fox School to applicants, (4) the debt levels of Fox School students who borrowed loans to pay tuition, and (5) the ratio of full-time technology support personnel to supported faculty members at the Fox School, caused U.S. News & World Report to rank Temple’s online M.B.A. and other programs substantially higher than it would have if Temple had provided accurate information,” said the agreement resolving the complaint.

“Temple’s Fox School knowingly, intentionally and substantially misrepresented the nature of certain of its educational program by advertising the false rankings by U.S. News & World Report thousands of times via online portals, social media, fully wrapped buses and newsstands, highway billboard signs, and advertisements at airport terminals, on trains, at train stations, in magazines, in newspapers, and on television and radio. The department believes this advertising wrongly increased Temple’s enrollment and revenue, deceived consumers, and unfairly harmed competitors,” the agreement said.