U.S. News & World Report To Release 2017 College Rankings

U.S. News & World Report revealed its 2017 rankings Tuesday of the best colleges in America, and it’s a list that parents and kids will want to pay attention to.

Deciding where to attend college is often the biggest decision a high school student will have to make, and it’s one that is typically just as nerve-wracking for the parents.

The process of college-hunting can lead to information overload, but U.S. News’ rankings are considered an important resource for many. The news organization spends months compiling data from hundreds of schools around the country. While U.S. News & World Report ended its print magazine in 2010, it still publishes online and a print version of its college rankings.

The 2017 version of the college rankings was released Tuesday. There was positive news for Oregon schools scattered throughout.

On the list of national universities, Oregon's two flagship schools - the University of Oregon and Oregon State University - are both there. Oregon is tied for 103 and Oregon State is tied for 143.

On the list of best national liberal arts colleges, four Oregon schools make the cut: Willamette University (72), Lewis and Clark College and Reed College (tied for 87), and Linfield College (128).

Oregon also does well on the list of best regional universities - schools that draw mostly from the area where they are located.

The University of Portland is 7th. Pacific University is 22nd, George Fox University is 23rd. Corban University is 68th. Northwestern Christian University is included in the second tier of schools - ones that are ranked between 94 and 124 and listed alphabetically.

"These rankings uphold the University's reputation as a place of excellence in teaching, research and service," noted University president Rev. Mark L. Poorman C.S.C. "They reflect the success of our long-held commitment to intellectual curiosity; to moral development and wise mentoring; to a lively, creative relationship between faith and reason, and the rich heritage found in Catholic social teachings."

The University of Portland (5th) and George Fox University (13th) make the list of best regional universities in the West for veterans while Oregon Institute of Technology is second on the list of best regional colleges for veterans in the West.

Oregon's Warner Pacific College is sixth on the list of best regional colleges and seventh on the list of best value regional colleges in the West.

The University of Portland (153) and Portland State University (184) both make the list of best business programs.

So, how are the rankings compiled?

U.S. News Chief Data Strategist Robert Morse told Patch that the publication considers objective factors such as graduation and retention rates.

“College is expensive,” Morse told Patch in an email. “In addition to considering factors like location, cost, course offerings and activities, families should pay close attention to graduation and retention rates.

“These are important indicators of how well a school supports its students academically and financially. The Best Colleges rankings measure academic excellence, and we believe that students and their families should strongly consider academic quality when choosing a college.”

U.S. News uses five categories of data that are all weighted differently.

• Outcomes (30 percent): Hard student performance data such as retention, graduation rate performance and graduation rate.
• Expert opinion (22.5 percent): More subjective data that includes opinions of presidents, provosts, high school counselors and admissions deans.
• Faculty resources (20 percent): Class size, student-to-faculty ratio, proportion of full-time faculty, proportion of professors with the highest degrees in their field and faculty salary.
• Student excellence (12.5 percent): How incoming students are performing on measures such as ACT/SAT scores, proportion of first-year students in the top 10 percent of their high school graduating class and acceptance rate.
• Financial resources (10 percent): How much money the school spends on things such as instruction, research and student services. (Spending on dorms, food and sports don’t count.)
• Alumni giving (5 percent): What percentage of living alumni with a bachelor’s degree have given to their school that year.

Typically, the prestigious Ivy League schools have a stronghold on the top of U.S. News’s lists. Last year, for instance, Princeton University, Harvard University and Yale University took the first three slots on the national rankings.

That’s all well and good for the best of the best high school students, but what about the rest?

The rankings are broken out by state and by category. Students and parents can also look at the publication’s rankings of best value schools and best public schools and the best schools by discipline such as engineering and business.

They can also drill down and see how specific schools perform across several metrics.

“U.S. News believes that the more information that is available to students, the better,” Morse told Patch. “Rankings, done right, are a useful source of information for students. U.S. News rankings focus specifically on assessing academic quality of schools. If academic quality is a top priority, our rankings are an ideal place to start.”

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