For an academic paper, it was really easy to read, and I say that as someone who has noticed that my own attention span has become alarmingly short.

For a TLDR, skip to the conclusion section.

Generally for a paper if you don't actually care to see the author back up their arguments (which is not a great way of fully ingesting a paper, but lots of things don't need to be fully ingested) you can just read the intro and the conclusion.

> §8: CONCLUSION

> No one should try to reform or rehabilitate the ranking. It is irredeemable. In Colin Diver’s memorable formulation, “Trying to rank institutions of higher education is a little like trying to rank religions or philosophies. The entire enterprise is flawed, not only in detail but also in conception.”

Got to appreciate an essayist who'll enter the conclusion section guns a'blazing.

Columbia should not be ranked 2nd in US news college rankings