U.S. News ranks U.Va. No. 1 in “Best Values”

Staff Report

U.Va. is again the No. 2 public university, ranking 23rd among 249 national universities in U.S. News & World Report’s college rankings, published in the Sept. 23 issue.

On the magazine’s list of “great schools at great prices,” U.Va. is the top-ranked public university and 11th overall. In calculating best values, U.S. News considers the cost of tuition and need-based aid to out-of-state students, along with each university’s academic quality.

U.Va.’s 92 percent graduation rate, the highest at any public university, is tied for ninth overall with Columbia, Northwestern and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In a new listing of academic “programs that really work,” the University’s experience for first-year students ranked in the top 25.

Only three other public universities are in the top 25 overall: The University of California-Berkeley (20th), and, tied at 25th, the University of California-Los Angeles and the University of Michigan.

The magazine also ranks undergraduate engineering and business programs each fall. The McIntire School of Commerce tied for fifth with the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler School, up two spots from last year. U.Va.’s School of Engineering and Applied Science dropped to 37th, five places lower than in 2001.

As in last year’s ranking, U.Va. placed 66th in financial resources, a measure of average spending per student on instruction, research, student services and other educational expenditures over the past two years. U.Va. spent less per student than any other institution in the top 25, which is sometimes considered a measure of efficiency.

Two resource categories — financial and faculty — together account for 30 percent of the ranking in the magazine’s calculation. Faculty resources, in which U.Va. ranked 35th, includes measures of class size, faculty salaries, student-faculty ratio, and the proportion of faculty who are full time and who have the highest degree in their field.

The College of William and Mary, which ranked 30th overall among the 249 national universities, was 160th in financial resources and 43rd in faculty resources.

More rankings

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education lists U.Va. among its top 10 schools for attracting and graduating African-American students in its 10th annual ratings.
U.Va. received a score of 80 and came in No. 9 in the journal’s compilations of data in 13 categories.

“For five years in a row, U.Va. has enrolled the highest percentage of incoming black freshmen of any of the nation’s highest-ranked universities,” the journal noted.

The 2002-03 African-American enrollment has increased to 9.6 percent, up from last year’s 9.1 percent, according to U.Va.’s Institutional Assessment and Studies office.

“This issue recognizes our strengths and the diversity of our student body,” said John A. Blackburn, dean of admission. He stressed that the competition is very keen for attracting the most promising African-American students, and said U.Va.’s efforts have never been stronger, despite legal challenges to other public universities’ affirmative action policies.

Duke University had the highest average diversity rating of the nation’s 26 most selective and prestigious universities included. The journal noted that three of the top five schools — Emory and Vanderbilt, in addition to Duke — were Southern schools, “lily-white” 40 years ago. Princeton and Washington universities were the other top two schools.

Also, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine ranked U.Va. second, after UNC-Chapel Hill, on its list of 100 Best Values in Public Colleges in its October 2002 issue. University of California-Berkeley was rated third.

The magazine conducted its previous survey two years ago, when the three schools ranked the same.