Some quick initial thoughts:
Seems like greater emphasis was placed on faculty:student ratio, which I personally think is a nice measure of education quality. Also the inclusion of an NIH grant awards metric for research quality was added. Personally, I'm a big fan of this addition given how shady industry funding can sometimes be. Overall, I think this year's rankings is a step in the right direction. Of course, not everyone will be happy, but the criteria for the survey seems to be shifting in the right direction.