The new U.S. ranking system by two top journals emphasizes
teaching quality and student outcomes

TACOMA, Wash. – University of Puget Sound has been named among the Top 100 liberal arts colleges in the United States, based on an innovative new ranking system used by The Wall Street Journal and Times Higher Education.

The 2017 ranking by the two highly respected journals puts student success and learning—based on 100,000 current student voices—at its heart.

 

Puget Sound ranked No. 59 within a large field of liberal arts colleges across all 50 states and in D.C. The data affirms the excellence of a Puget Sound education, as noted in other national rankings, while using data that directly address the issues of most concern to students and their families.

Fifteen performance indicators address key questions about education quality and student outcomes. The indicators include a college’s resources, how engaged and challenging the teaching is, a campus’s academic reputation, the type of campus community, and the likelihood of students graduating, paying off their loans, and getting a good job. The methodology weighs the 15 factors according to their importance. It explores four key areas:

  • Resources (30 percent weighting): This includes a college’s financial resources per student, the number of faculty members per student, and research papers per faculty member.
  • Engagement (20 percent): This looked at student engagement, student recommendations of their colleges, the interaction between professors and students, and the number of accredited programs on offer.
  • Outcomes (40 percent): Factors include the student graduation rate, the value added to graduates’ salaries, the value added to their loan repayment rates, and a college’s academic reputation.
  • Environment (10 percent): The measure included the proportion of international students, student diversity, student inclusion, and staff diversity.

Sources for the data included the U.S. federal government’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), College Scorecard, and Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), the Times Higher Education (THE) U.S. Student Survey, THE Academic Survey, and the Elsevier bibliometric dataset.

For more details on the methodology, visit: timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/wall-street-journal-times-higher-education-college-rankings-methodology

For a full listing of the Top 100 liberal arts colleges, visit: timeshighereducation.com/student/best-universities/best-liberal-arts-colleges-united-states

Photos on page: Puget Sound classrooms, by Ross Mulhausen

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