The Wall Street Journal / Times Higher Education Rankings of 500 colleges and universities are based on 15 key indicators that assess colleges in four main areas: Outcomes (40%), Resources (30%), Engagement(20%), and Environment (10%).
Outcomes = graduates salary & debt burden.
Resources = spending into instruction & student services.
Engagement = student survey results on interactions with teachers & other students.
Environment = diversity.
WSJ / THE Ranking of US Colleges:
Harvard
MIT
Yale
Stanford
Brown
Duke
CalTech
Princeton
Cornell
Northwestern
11)Johns Hopkins University (JHU)
12) Dartmouth College
13) University of Pennsylvania
14) University of Chicago
The Wall Street Journal / Times Higher Education College Rankings include 500 colleges & universities. The first 400 colleges & universities are ranked; the remaining 100 schools are listed alphabetically and grouped as one common rank of #401-500.
Below I will select schools which seem to be discussed on this website rather than list all remaining 300 schools.
Lake Forest College
Southwestern University
University of Portland
Gonzaga University
Susquehanna University
Earlham College
Ithaca College
Beloit College
Univ. of Oregon
CUNY City College of New York
Knox College
Mercer University
Miami University of Ohio
Providence College
DePaul University
Rutgers-Newark
Stonehill College
Univ. of Kansas
Univ. of Dayton
Univ. of Oklahoma
Auburn University
Univ. of Scranton
CUNY-Baruch
Univ. of Wyoming
UC-Santa Cruz
Austin College
Hendrix College
The College of New Jersey
Bard College
Iowa State University
LSU–Louisiana State University
Rutgers-Camden
Embry Riddle
Rollins College
San Diego State University
CUNY-Hunter
USF-Tampa
Univ. of Minnesota-Morris
Univ. of Alabama–Birmingham
Hampshire College
Univ. of South Carolina–Columbia
Univ. of Tennessee–Knoxville
University of Mississippi
University of Vermont
Elizabethtown College
Embry Riddle-Prescott
The University of Missouri–Mizzou
UCF–Univ. of Central Florida
UNLV–Univ. of Nevada Las Vegas
Eckerd College
Univ. of Nebraska–Lincoln
Suffolk University
Berry College
Univ. of Houston
Stetson University
University of New Mexico (Main Campus)
401-500) University of Alabama
401-500) Univ. of Alabama at Huntsville
Berklee College of Music
CalArts
California State University (7 campuses)
University of Idaho
Mississippi State University
New Mexico State University
Ohio University–Athens
Portland State University
University of Rhode Island
SUNY-Buffalo
Towson University
Utah State University
West Virginia University
Western Washington University
Honors Colleges and Honors Programs at large public universities deserve a ranking of their own as an imbalance of resources are invested in honors colleges and programs and outcomes are often significantly superior for students in public honors colleges and honors programs.
Some surprising results for LACs when broken down by category.
The top two LACs–Amherst College & Williams College–rank quite high for “outcomes” at #19 (Amherst) and at #13 (Williams College), yet do poorly in the category of “Engagement Rank” finishing in the bottom 20% at >400 (a rank from #401 to #500).Engagement Rank is based on survey results regarding teaching and interactions with students and faculty.
The Engagement Rank category of “>400” is the same ranking received by CalTech, Princeton University, Haverford College, Middlebury College, Hamilton College, Kenyon College, and by Davidson College. Not bad company, but still disappointing.
Swarthmore College does well in the Engagement Rank category at #48–tied with Northwestern University, Rice University, and Duke University.
Engagement Rank = “how engaged students feel they are with their professors, their peers, and their education.”
This doesn’t surprise me at all. The top liberal arts colleges attract an awful lot of people who know from an early age that they want careers on Wall Street. And, even though they don’t offer business degrees, they nevertheless force their students to take Economics as a highly theoretical, math-heavy, substitute. Kids at Duke and Rice have a much easier time engaging with their studies because they are usually offered in completely separate schools from the arts and science college.
The two primary areas of focus of the WSJ / THE rating & ranking system both deal with money = “Outcomes” & “Resources”. Outcomes account for 40% of the rating formula, while Resources count for 30% of the rating formula.
Money is important in the real world and in the world of academia. I find it helpful to rank individual schools–as opposed to multi-school systems–by endowment.
The top ten ranked schools enjoy substantial endowments–although Brown & Duke outperform in this respect.
The top ten schools are:
Harvard
MIT
Yale
Stanford
Brown
Duke
CalTech
Princeton
Cornell
Northwestern
The top 4 LACs in the ranking also enjoy healthy endowments:
21 Amherst College
21 Williams College
24 Pomona College
29 Wellesley College
My best guess is that wealthy colleges & universities will fare even better in the various rankings due to the economic impact of the novel coronavirus Covid-19.
It is likely that full-pay students will enjoy a significant admissions bump in the current and upcoming years–even to the wealthiest schools as they have not been immune to unexpected financial downturns due to the effects of the coronavirus.
I don’t know how their endowment managers managed their endowments, but it was pretty obvious to anyone who understood that infectious diseases in humans cross racial and international borders, that we would be affected at least as badly as Wuhan was. In addition, studying all stock market drops in response to crises since the Great Depression, it’s evident that the market recovers before anything else - the drop is usually sudden and steep, followed by a rapid and steep recovery. So it is very possible that the endowment managers for universities made BIG profits in the market for their endowments.
Interesting comment. Certainly endowment gains are possible, but an institution can still suffer short-term financial stress depending upon the source of revenue.
Tuition & fees, room & board are revenue streams that have been interrupted due to the coronavirus
Endowment gains or losses are typically paper gains or losses and the uses of endowment funds may be restricted.
The above assertions lead me to believe that full-pay students will enjoy an admissions bump during this year & in the near future.
As a side note: I cannot find Harvey Mudd College in the WSJ / THE college Rankings published on September 18, 2020 even though the other Claremont colleges are listed.
^^It’s hard to point to any examples of where wealthy colleges actually made money at the end of a financial panic. In order to do that, they would have to have an infusion of ready cash to take advantage of any dips in stock prices, something they don’t usually have. In most cases, they are lucky to have a recovery to base line. In that respect, they’re no different than the average 401-K.
^As for Harvey Mudd, they’re only 895 students. Does that even make the cut-off for inclusion in the ranking?
All eyes are on this year’s ED applications which were invented by the east coast LACs as a bulwark against the Ivy League edge in nationwide branding. Will full-pay families apply at the same rates as in years past? What will happen to colleges like the Claremonts, Amherst and Bowdoin that didn’t completely re-open due to precautions against the coronavirus? There is open talk on CC that it could scramble the decades long rankings pecking order that traditionally placed the wealthiest LACs at the top of USNews and other polls.
Duke has only two undergraduate colleges, Trinity (arts & sciences) and Pratt (engineering). Most students interested in business choose to major in econ with the finance track, and the Markets & Management Studies certificate* is popular too.
Duke’s undergraduate programs in environmental science and public policy are offered in association with the Nicholas School and Sanford School, respectively, but they’re housed within Trinity.
*Certificate programs at Duke require more courses than a minor but fewer than a major.