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College costs continue to rise and student loan debt has many high schoolers looking at other plans for after they graduate.
CEDAR FALLS — The University of Northern Iowa continues to be seeded at the top of the list for regional public universities in the Midwest.
UNI ranks second on the 2023-24 U.S. News Best Colleges list. It has held the position for four years straight. Missouri’s Truman State University remains at number one.
For regional universities, which includes public and private institutions, UNI is ranked 11th out of 164 schools.
The publication defines regional universities as institutions that offer a full range of undergraduate programs as well as providing graduate education at the master’s level.
The state’s two national universities, the University of Iowa and Iowa State University, both fell in their rankings. UI dropped five points to being the 98th overall national university, while ISU dropped six points to 121st.
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When looking at only public national universities, UI ranked 50th and ISU 63rd. Last year they ranked 35th and 61st respectively.
National universities are public and private schools that have more doctoral programs than their regional counterparts. They also focus more on research and receive federal money to support that.
The top national university is Princeton University in New Jersey while the top public national university is University of California-Los Angeles.
The rankings rank 1,500 institutions that provide four-year bachelor’s degrees based on 17 measures of academic quality. The most weighted ranking indicators include graduation rates, retention rates and peer assessments.
UNI’s first year retention rate remained the same as last year at 84%. The graduation rate also stayed the same at 69%.
The student-to-faculty rate is higher than last year, about 17 students to 1 instructor. UNI’s median student debt is the 25th lowest of the midwestern universities at $19,961. More than 110 of these regional institutions have a median debt of more than $20,000.
Upper Iowa University in Fayette, which has a Waterloo campus, is ranked with other Midwest regional universities in the 149-164 range.
Wartburg College in Waverly, a national liberal arts college, was ranked 158 – two spots lower than last year.
National liberal arts colleges are defined as institutions that focus on undergraduate education that award at least 50% of their degrees in arts and sciences.
More information can be found at usnews.com/best-colleges.
Best colleges in America
Best colleges in America
#100. University of South Carolina
#99. Drexel University
#98. Auburn University
#96. University of Utah
#94. Indiana University Bloomington
#93. Binghamton University State University of New York
#92. Reed College
#91. University of Rochester
#89. Florida International University
#87. University of Connecticut
#86. Trinity University
#85. George Washington University
#84. Colgate University
#83. Macalester College
#81. William & Mary
#80. Bates College
#78. Vassar College
#77. University of Massachusetts Amherst
#76. Case Western Reserve University
#74. Wesleyan University
#72. The Ohio State University
#68. Haverford College
#67. North Carolina State University
#66. University of Minnesota Twin Cities
#65. Virginia Tech
#63. Wake Forest University
#62. University of California, Santa Barbara
#60. University of South Florida
#59. University of Wisconsin
#56. University of Miami
#55. Purdue University
#54. Boston College
#52. Bowdoin College
#51. Washington and Lee University
#50. University of Georgia
#49. University of California, Davis
#48. Wellesley College
#47. University of Washington
#46. Middlebury College
#44. Barnard College
#43. University of California San Diego
#42. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
#41. University of Texas at Austin
#40. University of California, Irvine
#39. Davidson College
#38. Swarthmore College
#36. University of Notre Dame
#34. New York University
#33. Emory University
#32. University of Florida
#31. Northeastern University
#29. University of Southern California
#27. University of Virginia
#26. Georgia Institute of Technology
#25. Boston University
#24. Pomona College
#23. Carnegie Mellon University
#22. Princeton University
#21. The University of Chicago
#20. Washington University in St. Louis
#19. Harvey Mudd College
#18. University of Michigan
#17. Cornell University
#16. University of California, Los Angeles
#15. Rice University
#14. California Institute of Technology
#13. Duke University
#8. Brown University
#7. Dartmouth College
#4. Columbia University
#1. Yale University
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