UMass Amherst Continues Rise in U.S. News Rankings
AMHERST — UMass Amherst continued its ascent among the nation’s best public universities, moving up to number 29 in the 2016 “Best Colleges” guide released by U.S. News & World Report.
“This year’s U.S. News ranking is a recognition of our campus’s outstanding undergraduate programs and the commitment of our students, faculty, staff, and alumni to achieve excellence,” said UMass Amherst Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy. “Our continued rise in the rankings demonstrates that investing in UMass yields impressive results, and we look forward to a continuing partnership with the governor and Legislature to create a vibrant future for our students and the Commonwealth.”
The Commonwealth’s flagship campus was ranked as a top-30 national public university for the first time last year and moved up one spot in this year’s assessment. There are more than 600 public, four-year universities in the country.
UMass Amherst also advanced one slot to number 75 in the Best National Universities category, which consists of 280 public, private, and for-profit institutions.
The rankings continue the impressive progress made by the Commonwealth’s flagship campus, which was 40th in the Public National Universities category and 91st among National Universities just two years ago. U.S. News has UMass Amherst tied with six other schools on the Best National Universities ranking. Among publics, four schools share the number-29 spot with UMass Amherst.
The U.S. News rankings are based on a variety of weighted factors: graduation rate performance, undergraduate academic reputation, faculty resources, graduation and retention rate, alumni giving, financial resources, student selectivity, and high-school counselor ratings. All of the schools in the National Universities category offer a wide range of undergraduate majors as well as master’s and doctoral degrees while emphasizing faculty research.
