Money magazine published a report on July 28, ranking many Georgia colleges and universities poorly, according to Atlanta Magazine. Georgia State’s ranking was No. 382 out of 665.
Ratings were based off of screenings of 1,500 four-year colleges offering ‘the most bang for your tuition buck’, according to Money’s website. Colleges were then ranked based on 16 factors in three categories: Quality of education, affordability and outcomes from PayScale.com
“….We then used a statistical technique to turn all of the data points into a single score on a five-point scale and rated them accordingly,” Money’s website states.
See table below for complete list of Money magazine’s ranking categories:
Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia (UGA) were the only two colleges within the state making Money’s Top 100 list, according to Atlanta Magazine. Georgia Tech was No. 42 and UGA ranked No. 62. Morehouse College was ranked the lowest at No. 664.
See chart below for all Georgia college and university rankings:
However, U.S. News & World Report (USNWR) also recently published a national report of university rankings, according to Atlanta Magazine.
“…Emory takes Georgia’s top spot in the 2014 U.S. News & World Report rankings at No. 20, followed by Georgia Tech at 36 and UGA in a tie with Texas’ Southern Methodist University for 60,” Atlanta Magazine states. “No other Georgia school made the USNWR cut, though the system stopped handing out numbers after a six-way tie for No. 201.”
USNWR’s ratings are calculated by using quantitative measures of academic quality proposed by education experts and the company’s own research view of what matters in education, according to USNWR’s website.
“First, schools are categorized by their mission which is derived from the breakdown of types of higher education institutions as refined by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 2010…,” USNWR’s states.
USNWR then gathers data from each college based off of 16 indicators of academic excellence, according to the website. Each factor is assigned a weight reflecting USWNR’s judgement of how much a measure matters.
Princeton University, Harvard and Yale were USNWR’s top three college choices, according to Atlanta Magazine.
Money magazine’s website states their top-ranked colleges offering the most for students’ money were: Babson College (Babson Park, MA), Webb Institute (Glen Cove, NY) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA).
Tim Renick, Vice Provost and Vice President for Enrollment Management and Student Success, said although Georgia State pays attention to different rankings they are not triggers to alter strategies or direction.
“Rankings may have some impact, but I believe parents and students are smart enough to examine more carefully whether a college or university offers the programs and provides the services best suited to their interests and needs,” Renick said.
Parents and students deciding on which college is best for them should make the decision based on their interests and needs, according to Renick.
“…They need to find and examine schools that provide the programs and services best suited for them. The choice of a college is not a ‘one size fits all’, and Georgia State offers opportunities to students that are difficult to find anywhere else in the nation,” he said.
Georgia State is continuing to pursue its vision of becoming one of the nation’s leading urban research institutes, according to Renick. This also includes using resources to provide programs and services students need for degrees.
“This past year, U.S. News ranked Georgia State among the Top 15 ‘Up and Coming Universities’ in the nation—a commentary on our growing reputation, our graduation rates that are among the fastest rising in the U.S., and our innovative student-support systems,” he said. “I believe that these are among the factors that prospective students and their parents should take into account when considering a college.
Annual national college and university rankings are published every August, according to USWNR’s website.
