UF Moves Into the Top 10 Public Universities in US News Ranking

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2017-09-07/2018-best-colleges-preview-top-10-public-universities

Last year, UF was ranked #14. This year UF is in the top 10, displacing Wisconsin and Illinois.

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2017-09-07/2018-best-colleges-preview-top-10-public-universities

Nice!

Years ago, UF was considered to be on par with Michigan State which was a middling Big 10 school. In the latest figures, it is ranked higher than any Big 10 school other than Northwestern and Michigan. That is a major accomplishment.

Our plans for Global Domination goes well…first Wisconsin and Illinois, then the WORLD!!!

Our first act as Global Ruler will be to turn FSU into a petting zoo…yes…oh yes…
MWAA, HAHA, HAHA >:) >:) >:)

Keeping in mind that schools move up and down a few spots, every year, often it’s just noise in the system or the way ties work in the rankings.

UF’s rise has been due to demographics, money, and the long term efforts (via research, sports, etc) to build it’s reputation and national profile.

The states population has more than doubled since I attended UF in the 80’s. The state has also aggressively increased access to AP classes, IB and AICE programs, and Dual Enrollment (and even online programs, which has been a boon for homeschoolers). That’s really driven up the quality of students, while making it far more selective.

The state’s economy has been steadily growing, allows it to increase funding for higher education. Currently UF spends around the same amount per student, as it’s other peers in the top 10 (while keeping tuition low, and funding Bright Futures). The amount of construction on campus has been crazy, and if you look at what’s planned, it’s not slowing down anytime soon.

UF has had to overcome the general reputation bias against southeastern schools. That started to change in the 80’s when it first became a member of AAU (elite 62 research universities), and it’s growth into a top research university (now over $700 million in research funding each year).

Finally, UF has had a series of very effective Presidents, while the state legislature has done a solid job of keeping the state running (allowing it to increase funding to all of the state Universities and Colleges).

Interesting, earlier this year, President Fuchs, in speeches, has been saying that UF’s goal is no longer to be a top 10 Public University, but to be one of the very best public research universities. Look for the language to start changing, away from being a top 10, to being one of the best…

Here is the complete list.

2018
1University of California at Berkeley21
1
University of California at Los Angeles
21
3
University of Virginia________________25
4
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor____28
5
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill30
6
College of William and Mary32
7
Georgia Institute of Technology
34
8
University of California at Santa Barbara37
9
University of California at Irvine
_____42
9
University of California at San Diego___42
9
University of Florida________________42
12
University of California at Davis46
12
University of Wisconsin at Madison
__46
14
Pennsylvania State University
52
14
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign52
16University of Washington
______54
16
University of Georgia
54
16
Ohio State University
54
19
Purdue University
____56
19
University of Connecticut
__56
19
University of Texas at Austin___________56

UF had a big jump from an overall ranking of 50 to 42. I would wager much of the increase was due to the much improved admittance and yield ratios from last year. These are somewhat tied to the Benacquisto and other funding for high achieving Florida high school graduates to keep them in-state.

I’m assuming US news uses the 2016-2017 Common data set. This next class that enrolled this spring (UF2021), will have even better stats, especially considering they reduced by a few hundred the number of students that enrolled.

This fall, UF admitted 13,214 for a 38 percent acceptance rate – down from last year’s acceptance rate of 42.5 percent (this is the rate used by US News for the 2018 rankings). I’m assuming the yield will be the same or increased (due to the increase in Bright Futures, if nothing else). With a smaller admitted class, the % in the top 10% will also increase.

However, the initiative that’s most likely going to have the largest impact on the rankings, will be the initiative to hire more full time faculty and drive the student to faculty ratio down to 17 to 1. It’s currently about 20 to 1. UF plans on lowering the ratio over the next three years. This is the first year that’s been funded by the state. It will need to have this initiative funded for two more years. We’ll have to wait and see if the funding continues.

In fact, **Faculty Resources/b make up 20% of the rankings, while **Student Selectivity/b only makes up 12.5% of the rankings.

The increase funding from the state also directly impacts the Financial Resources component of the rankings, which make up 10% of the overall score.

If we continue to get the funding ($ makes everything better…), I would guess that UF will jump over UC-SD and UC-I over the next 2 to 4 years. Maybe even UC-SB. After that, the path becomes much harder, and it becomes more of a case of waiting for the undergraduate academic reputation (22.5% of the overall score) to increase. The survey’s are a lagging indicator. Once UF made it into the top 10 (and stays there), folks will start ranking it higher on the surveys, but it takes time to influence the academic peers (presidents, provost, deans of admissions) and High School counselors.

In the short term, California’s funding woes are also a reason why UF may leapfrog over those three schools.

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings

EDIT: This data is old (2014), but it provides a useful comparison between UF and the three UC’s.

http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/search1ba.aspx?institutionid=110705,110680,110653,134130

http://publicuniversityhonors.com/2016/09/18/average-u-s-news-rankings-for-126-universities-2010-1017/

Here are the stats from the above article:

It is interesting that Alabama fell by 31 points. This is during the time period that they have been aggressively promoting OOS scholarships for merit. If they wanted to go up in the rankings, maybe they should have had a different strategy.

Alabama sharply increased enrollment (which brings in revenue), but it didn’t increase faculty at anywhere close to the same rate (the student to faculty ratio is currently 23 to 1). It reminds me of UCF (and why I think UCF is now about 20 or 30 spots behind USF).

FSU’s increase is impressive, and it’s being driven by it’s increase in graduation and retention rates (and perhaps an increase in it’s peer survey results).

http://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2017/09/12/do-not-post-untilfsu-moves-up-no-33-among-u-s-news-and-world-reports-best-public-universities-rankin/656011001/

From UF’s Official News site:

http://news.ufl.edu/articles/2017/09/uf-first-in-florida-to-crack-us-news-list-of-top-10-best-public-universities.php

All I know is that we love UF and continue to be thankful that our kiddo is there.