US News & World Report College Rankings

[RF1]

2021 Best National University Rankings (Sep-2020 - 389 schools)
Schools in the National Universities category, such as the University of Chicago and Carnegie Mellon University, offer a full range of undergraduate majors, plus master's and doctoral programs. These colleges also are committed to producing groundbreaking research.

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/ra ... iversities

URI ranks #170. Its rank has dropped a bit in recent years as more schools have been reclassified as national universities (389 this year versus 312 in 2018). Its relative standing among other area schools has however remained fairly constant.

New England National Universities
2 Harvard
4 MIT
4 Yale
13 Dartmouth
14 Brown
30 Tufts
35 Boston College
42 Boston Univ
42 Brandeis
49 Northeastern
63 UConn
66 UMass-Amherst
66 WPI
103 Clark
118 Vermont
143 UNH
153 Quinnipiac
170 URI
176 UMass-Lowell
206 Maine
217 Hartford
217 Sacred Heart
217 UMass-Dartmouth


Peer SUNY National Universities
88 Binghamton
88 Stony Brook
88 Univ at Buffalo
160 Albany

[RF1]

Links to threads on some previous year rankings:

US News & World Report College Rankings-Sep 2018 - URI #157 (out of 312)
https://keaneyblue.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=7681


US News & World Report College Rankings-Sep 2017 - URI #156
https://keaneyblue.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=7031

[RF1]

The 2021 rankings are out and URI moved up a bit to #162 from the prior year at #170.

New England National Universities -2021
2 Harvard
2 MIT
5 Yale
13 Dartmouth
14 Brown
28 Tufts
36 Boston College
42 Boston Univ
42 Brandeis
49 Northeastern
63 UConn
63 WPI
68 UMass-Amherst
103 Clark
117 Vermont
136 Simmons
136 UNH
148 Quinnipiac
162 URI
179 UMass-Lowell
187 St Joseph (CT)
202 Sacred Heart
213 Hartford
213 Maine
213 WNEC
227 UMass-Boston
227 UMass-Dartmouth
249 Lesley
249 U of New England

Peer SUNY National Universities
83 Binghamton
93 Stony Brook
93 Univ at Buffalo
172 Albany

Link: https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/ra ... iversities

[RF1]

The 2022 rankings are out and URI dropped quite a bit to #182 from the prior year at #162. After having outranked UMass-Lowell for a time, it has fallen behind its #176 ranking.

New England National Universities -2022
2 MIT
3 Harvard
3 Yale
12 Dartmouth
13 Brown
32 Tufts
36 Boston College
41 Boston Univ
44 Brandeis
44 Northeastern
67 UConn
67 UMass-Amherst
67 WPI
97 Clark
115 Fairfield
121 Vermont
137 UNH
151 Simmons
166 Quinnipiac
176 UMass-Lowell
182 URI
202 Springfield College
219 Sacred Heart
219 Maine
234 Hartford
234 Suffolk
234 UMass-Boston
234 UMass-Dartmouth
234 WNEC
285 U of New England

Peer SUNY National Universities
77 Stony Brook
83 Binghamton
89 Univ at Buffalo
182 Albany

Link: https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/ra ... iversities

[RhowdyRam02]

Well, their annual rankings are out, so I guess it's time for the annual reminder that it's all complete and total bullshit

https://thecollegesolution.com/15-reaso ... -rankings/

Points 3, 4, 5, 9, and 11 probably being the most damning. The rankings are easy to game if you choose to as a University, it's fairly easy to go beyond gaming to outright cheating in the rankings, and it doesn't really measure the stuff that's important

[RIFan]

I was unaware that the Northeastern story was so well known. I have a colleague who worked there at that time and was involved in some of the meetings and decisions were made for purposes of improving their ranking. Well it worked. I have no idea how we could drop. The school is so impressive right now.

[theblueram]

So how much does it cost? You know, for a high ranking. Everything is bought nowadays. Maybe we aren't paying enough.

[theblueram]

Maybe URI should sign up for a Federal grant to study how to increase it's prominence in the collegiate field. Maybe $25M. Then just transfer that money to US News and Reports and say we are a big time school?

[RIFan]

It’s my understanding that the cost of the school factors in…the higher the better, so rumor has it schools have artificialy raised their prices and give generous “scholarships”. Also, the percentage of applicants accepted, so another area that can be gamed is making it easier and less expensive to apply so they can accept the same number of students but it looks more selective.

[theblueram]

It’s my understanding that the cost of the school factors in…the higher the better, so rumor has it schools have artificialy raised their prices and give generous “scholarships”. Also, the percentage of applicants accepted, so another area that can be gamed is making it easier and less expensive to apply so they can accept the same number of students but it looks more selective.

I don't believe that is it. USF(South Florida) is ranked #97. The in state tuition is $6,400 and out of state is $17,300. Their out of state tuition is close to URI's in state tuition. I tell my youngest, if you want to go out of state, look at this school.

[SGreenwell]

Malcolm Gladwell had a two or three part podcast series on the failings of the rankings, but... The biggest factor in the rankings is a nebulous prestige factor that is determined by them asking the schools to rank one another, by sending questionaires out to school administrators. So basically, you're asking, say, an administrator at San Jose State to rank Arizona State, USC and Harvard. As sports fans, all you need to do is to look at the coaches polls for various sports to realize this is probably a poor way to rank schools. Coaches - or school administrators - are busy, and once you get past Ivy League schools, they're probably pretty hard pressed to tell you why URI is better or worse than UConn or UMass-Amherst or UMass-Lowell. (This will also shock you, but there's evidence that HBCUs were probably ranked far too low because of this factor for many years.)

Beyond that, schools are also rewarded for spending more per pupil... Except that they *don't* get a boost in the formula used for just raw numbers, IIRC. They also got called out for using "family income level of incoming students" as a judging factor, and have de-emphasized that, IIRC. These all compound with some of the issues that RIFan mentioned. If you're a larger state school, or an inner city school trying to provide a solid education to poorer people, you plummet down the rankings.

I understand why these rankings are popular - If you're a parent or a student, this is ultimately a five or six-figure decision for you in most classes. But the boring, practical advice is that college is almost always what you make of it on your own. Go tour a couple with majors and extracurriculars that gel with your interests, and pick.

[theblueram]

Malcolm Gladwell had a two or three part podcast series on the failings of the rankings, but... The biggest factor in the rankings is a nebulous prestige factor that is determined by them asking the schools to rank one another, by sending questionaires out to school administrators. So basically, you're asking, say, an administrator at San Jose State to rank Arizona State, USC and Harvard. As sports fans, all you need to do is to look at the coaches polls for various sports to realize this is probably a poor way to rank schools. Coaches - or school administrators - are busy, and once you get past Ivy League schools, they're probably pretty hard pressed to tell you why URI is better or worse than UConn or UMass-Amherst or UMass-Lowell. (This will also shock you, but there's evidence that HBCUs were probably ranked far too low because of this factor for many years.)

Beyond that, schools are also rewarded for spending more per pupil... Except that they *don't* get a boost in the formula used for just raw numbers, IIRC. They also got called out for using "family income level of incoming students" as a judging factor, and have de-emphasized that, IIRC. These all compound with some of the issues that RIFan mentioned. If you're a larger state school, or an inner city school trying to provide a solid education to poorer people, you plummet down the rankings.

I understand why these rankings are popular - If you're a parent or a student, this is ultimately a five or six-figure decision for you in most classes. But the boring, practical advice is that college is almost always what you make of it on your own. Go tour a couple with majors and extracurriculars that gel with your interests, and pick.

Of course. The Good Will Hunting of colleges. Which I believe in. It really doesn't matter which school you get a degree from, it's what you do with it. Hell, I was buying used accounting books that had Cornell stamped on it at URI. I said to myself, I'm learning the same thing as Ivy League students for 15% of the cost.

[RIFan]

It’s my understanding that the cost of the school factors in…the higher the better, so rumor has it schools have artificialy raised their prices and give generous “scholarships”. Also, the percentage of applicants accepted, so another area that can be gamed is making it easier and less expensive to apply so they can accept the same number of students but it looks more selective.

I don't believe that is it. USF(South Florida) is ranked #97. The in state tuition is $6,400 and out of state is $17,300. Their out of state tuition is close to URI's in state tuition. I tell my youngest, if you want to go out of state, look at this school.

The price is one of the factors…one that can be manipulated…but obviously not the only one. Chapman in CA is about $80k and ranked over 100. But the price does play into the perceived value.

[4Diffs]

Malcolm Gladwell had a two or three part podcast series on the failings of the rankings, but... The biggest factor in the rankings is a nebulous prestige factor that is determined by them asking the schools to rank one another, by sending questionaires out to school administrators. So basically, you're asking, say, an administrator at San Jose State to rank Arizona State, USC and Harvard. As sports fans, all you need to do is to look at the coaches polls for various sports to realize this is probably a poor way to rank schools. Coaches - or school administrators - are busy, and once you get past Ivy League schools, they're probably pretty hard pressed to tell you why URI is better or worse than UConn or UMass-Amherst or UMass-Lowell. (This will also shock you, but there's evidence that HBCUs were probably ranked far too low because of this factor for many years.)

Beyond that, schools are also rewarded for spending more per pupil... Except that they *don't* get a boost in the formula used for just raw numbers, IIRC. They also got called out for using "family income level of incoming students" as a judging factor, and have de-emphasized that, IIRC. These all compound with some of the issues that RIFan mentioned. If you're a larger state school, or an inner city school trying to provide a solid education to poorer people, you plummet down the rankings.

I understand why these rankings are popular - If you're a parent or a student, this is ultimately a five or six-figure decision for you in most classes. But the boring, practical advice is that college is almost always what you make of it on your own. Go tour a couple with majors and extracurriculars that gel with your interests, and pick.

I just lost a post because I guess I took too much time to write it and I was logged off since I had quoted someone. Should have saved it first. But anyway will try to replicate what I wrote. The above is a very good post. Many others have said similar things and I agree whole heartedly. What the USNWR rankings are based on are deeply flawed and the fact that they have become the end all and be all of the quality of a college for many is ridiculous. Google Northeastern and how they gamed these rankings as they can easily be manipulated.

A few years ago I took the time to analyze what actually is included and not included.

What they do not include:

1. Average price of a school that a student pays
2. Amount of the average debt that a student graduates with
3. What the typical graduate is earning 10 years after graduating
4. The job placement percentage

The above do not factor in to these rankings at all. Not saying these four items should be the end all and be all, but to not factor in at all is a joke.

What is included:

Outcomes (35%) Sounds great, outcomes are important. But most would think numbers 3 and 4 above would factor in. Nope not at all. More than one third of a schools rank comes from its success at retaining and graduating students within 150% of normal time (six years). Graduation and retention percentage is 22%. This is the number of first year students who return for their second year and the percentage who graduate in 6 years. Graduation rate performance is 8%. This is defined as "The actual 6 year graduate rate versus what was predicted by USNWR." Not sure what this means and clearly not a very objective stat, how is this predicted? The last item is noble but not sure how it tells you anything about the quality of a school. Social Mobility (5%) Schools success at promoting social mobility by graduating students who received federal Pell grants. OK I guess.

And if someone transfers from a school and graduates from another school, it hurts you because you did not graduate from your original school. Again outcomes to me means how someone does after they graduate college. This wholly focuses on graduating college in six years or less and what you do after means nothing in these rankings.

The second biggest item at 20% is expert opinion. Really?? Ok who are these experts?? Top academics, presidents, provosts and deans of admissions (15%) - asking them to rate the academic quality of peer institutions with which they are familiar on a scale of 1 (marginal) to 5 (distinguished). Sounds really objective. And they have no idea the academic quality of any school unless they went to that school. This will be who they are friends with, what they talk about at their national conventions, what they read in USNWR etc. I find this to be the most utterly useless of all of the criteria. Oh the other 5% is surveys sent to high school counselors.

So that is 55% of the rankings. The rest are 5% for Alumni giving (yes you cheap bastards not giving to your school hurts its ranking, who would have thought that), 20% Faculty Resources, 10% financial resources and 10% student excellence.

Faculty resources consists of:

Class Size (8%) This entire measure is based on class size, nothing else. Classes with less than 20 students get the highest credit, between 20 and 29 students second highest between 30 and 39 students third highest, 40 to 49 fourth highest and above 50 no credit.

Faculty Salary (7%) Not sure why they do this, I guess the more they make the better they are?? Doubtful, another measure that schools can use to play with the rankings.

The other five percent are proportion of full time faculty with the highest degree in their fields (3%), proportion of faculty who are full time (1%) and student faculty ratio (1%).

The last three items above to me are probably more of an indication of the quality of the faculty but they are only 25% of the score. The vast majority is class size and how much the faculty make. A small class is not inherently better than a larger class but this unequivocally says yes it is. And many professors paid the most do the least amount of teaching as they do a ton of research.

FINANCIAL RESOURCES (10%) Generous per-student spending indicates that a college can offer a wide variety of programs and services. Read this again, does not say they do, just that they can. OK so spend some money on that Rock Wall, or that new dining facility or that new whatever. Whether this leads to a higher quality of education is open for debate.

STUDENT EXCELLENCE (10%) Standardized Tests (7.75%) and 2.25% is high school class rankings. No issues with these, at least is based on objective criteria.

I have many clients that ask me about certain schools for their kids and they invariably bring up these rankings. They really believe that they are an objective ranking of the academic quality of a school. I always ask them do they know what these rankings are based on and most have no idea. When I tell them what they are based on they are quite surprised.

When I look at colleges, I look at the value of a school. And for me that means how much does that school cost and how much will I make (the average graduate of that school) after graduating. I know there are many rich people and intellectual elites that would be horrified by that criteria and many of those are located in New England. But most people going to college are looking for exactly that. Back in the day, this is exactly the way Smart Money used to rank colleges. And URI was ranked very high using that criteria. And I would bet it would be highly ranked today if it was based on that same criteria. I know where I was when I entered URI and where I am today. I am very grateful for URI for the great education I received at URI. The fact that USNWR tells me otherwise is useless to me. And it should be for anyone that knows what these rankings are based on.

[RhowdyRam02]

Well said! And you can't even take their "best value" ranking because they use their college ranking system as a major component to compare said value

[URI_CellBio14]

One of the most underrated benefits to URI is that it's the state flagship school. I lot of the students probably could have gotten into one of the higher ranked public schools like UCLA or Michigan or UConn if they were born in a different state. People from working class backgrounds, poor neighborhoods, children of 1st gen immigrants in PVD etc who can't afford expensive test prep/books/practice questions, private/OOS tuition, or even just applying to many colleges. URI is surrounded by these talented students

Also let's be honest, sure the student at MIT will have more resources and connections, but calculus is calculus at the end of the day no matter where you go.

I went to (ironically speaking of rankings) a "lower ranked" RI high school that isn't one of those schools where everyone goes to college (not that there is anything wrong with skipping college) and the people that went to URI have gone on to do very well in life.

Also URI has a ton of niche's that are hard to fine elsewhere like ocean related stuff or international engineering that attract a lot of really good research, professors, and students. The Honors Program is superb too.

One of the best ideas our country had was the flagship university where a kid like me, with a widowed mom who worked 2 jobs, could eventually end up in the same place as people who went to Brown or the other super highly ranked/expensive schools

[RF1]

The 2024 US News & World Report College Rankings are out. The formula was once again tweaked which resulted in many public universities improving their rank. This may help partially explain the URI move to #151 from its previous year rank of #182. Curiously, UMaine was not a public school which saw improvement as it was ranked #249 after it had been at #219 the previous year.

New England National Universities -2024
2 MIT
3 Harvard
5 Yale
9 Brown
18 Dartmouth
39 Boston College
40 Tufts
43 Boston Univ
53 Northeastern
58 UConn
60 Brandeis
67 UMass-Amherst
82 WPI
115 UNH
124 Fairfield
133 Vermont
142 Clark
151 Simmons
151 URI
159 UMass-Lowell
170 Quinnipiac
209 Sacred Heart
209 UMass-Dartmouth
216 Springfield College
216 UMass-Boston
236 WNEC
249 Suffolk
249 Maine
260 U of New England
304 Hartford
394 Bridgeport


Peer SUNY National Universities
58 Stony Brook
73 Binghamton
76 Univ at Buffalo
133 Albany

[RF1]

The new rankings put the six New England State Flagship Universities into three distinct groupings:

Top Tier
58 Uconn
67 UMass

Mid Tier
115 UNH
133 Vermont
151 URI

Bottom tier
249 Maine


Many decades ago, UVM used to be considered the best academic NE State Flagship University. It was then surpassed by UConn and UMass. By this source, it has now dropped behind UNH. The gap between UMaine and its NE counterparts has seen a large widening with the school falling much further back from its peers.

[OBRAM]

How do we get up to the UNH level?
I suppose UConn and UMass have a lot more state support than URI. UNH does bot get much state support.