USU in top 25 public universities
Utah State University was ranked as one of the top 25 public universities in the nation by Washington Monthly magazine.
Published in the September issue, the Washington Monthly College Rankings placed USU in the top 50 public or private universities in the nation and
ranked the university 24th out of all the public universities nationwide.
“This is a place of great opportunity and promise,” said USU Provost Raymond Coward. “We are pleased others have recognized us and put us in such good company.”
In publishing this list, the editors of the magazine said they wanted to discover which universities were careful in spending tax dollars and turning out the most competitive graduates.
In a statement on their Web site, the editors of the magazine said, “It’s a guide for all Americans who are concerned about our institutions of higher learning. Are our colleges making good use of tax dollars? Are they producing graduates who can keep our nation competitive in a changing world? Are they, in short, doing well by doing good?”
In determining the best, Washington Monthly focused on three categories: community service, research and social mobility.
Community service is evaluated by the percentage of federal work-study grants dedicated to community service projects, students enrolled in the Army and Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps and alumni serving in the Peace Corps.
The research component is measured by the amount of money spent on research by each school. It is also based on the percentage of undergraduates who have continued their education to obtain a doctorate in any subject and the number of doctorates the university gives to those in engineering and the sciences.
Social mobility is based on the percentage of students on Pell grants. The Web site said they must also take into account how many of these students graduate, because low-income students are more likely to not finish their education than affluent ones. If a university has a greater percentage of Pell grants because the student body is poor, it could affect their graduation rate negatively.
“This guide asks not what colleges can do for you, but what colleges are doing for the country,” said the editors in information published online. “We settled on two primary goals in our methodology. First, we considered no single category to be more important than any other. Second, the final rankings needed to reflect excellence across the full breadth of our measures,
rather than reward an exceptionally high focus on, say, research.”
When President Albrecht was contacted for an interview, his office released this statement: “The Washington Monthly ranking system uses the kind of measures that are consistent with the things we value at Utah State University. From our perspective, these are exactly the right kinds of metrics. We are pleased to be recognized as one of the country’s premier universities using these important measures.”
Coward said the areas by which Washington Monthly determines the best universities are the same kind of traits and characteristics USU values and emulates. He said he is very pleased with the university’s success.
“This didn’t give us insight to who we are, but confirms that others see us as we see ourselves,” Coward said.
-ariek@cc.usu.edu