What are tiers in college?

Question

example, what is a 4th Tier college?

Answer 1

Not good. Tiers refer to the ranking systems for colleges; for example, usually the "best" 50 schools in the country are called top-tier. The next 50 may be 2nd tier. The next group would be those respected locally, but which don't have a national reputation. And the 4th tier would be those which have only a marginal reputation even within their own area.