Every mutual fund ad that touts returns must warn you: past performance does not guarantee future results. College is one of the largest purchases most families make. It is sold largely on past performance, and the pitch carries no such warning. Worse, at selective schools the track record is built from hand-picked students. Learn to…

The Department of Education put the softest possible earnings warning on the FAFSA, after the list is set, for a thin slice of students. A quarter of those who saw it moved. Imagine what an honest one would do.

A low acceptance rate is mostly arithmetic, and it tells you far less about quality than it seems. How the ranking trap steers families away from the right schools.