Washington Monthly College rankings The Washington Monthly's "College Rankings" began as a research report in 2005 and introduced its first official rankings in the September 2006 issue. It offers different criteria from the ones used by U.S. News report (“turning U.S. News rankings upside down): (1) how well it performs as an engine of social mobility (ideally helping the poor to get rich rather than the very rich to get very, very rich)? (2) how well it does in fostering scientific and humanistic research? (3) and how well it promotes an ethic of service to country. Here are Washington Monthly rankings for IU-Bloomington and its peers compared to U.S. News rankings: