Washington Monthly - September/October 2019 - 16

TOP 30

NATIONAL UNIVERSITIES
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.

RANK IN U.S.
NEWS (2019)

STANFORD UNIVERSITY (CA)
Harvard University (MA)
MA Institute of Technology (MA)
Yale University (CT)
Duke University (NC)
University of Pennsylvania (PA)
University of California-San Diego (CA)*
Princeton University (NJ)
Georgetown University (DC)
Texas A&M University-College Station (TX)*
University of California-Davis (CA)*
University of California-Los Angeles (CA)*
Columbia Univ. in the City of NY (NY)
Utah State University (UT)*
Brigham Young University (UT)
University of Florida (FL)*
University of IL-Urbana-Champaign (IL)*
University of California-Irvine (CA)*
University of Washington-Seattle (WA)*
University of California-Berkeley (CA)*
University of CA-Santa Barbara (CA)*
University of NC-Chapel Hill (NC)*
University of Wisconsin-Madison (WI)*
CA State University-Fresno (CA)*
Cornell University (NY)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (MI)*
University of California-Riverside (CA)*
Brown University (RI)
Washington State University (WA)*
University of Notre Dame (IN)

*Public institution

7
2
3
3
8
8
41
1
22
66
38
19
3
205
66
35
46
33
59
N/A
30
30
49
205
16
27
85
14
140
18

The 2019 U.S. News rankings were released in October 2018.

That's the difference between selling a world-class university and
being one.
All of the schools caught up in the cheating scandal participate, to varying degrees, in the corruption of the academic ideal.
Just as you can't cheat an honest man, you can't bribe your way
past the doorman of a side entrance that doesn't exist. Elite universities in this day and age are trying to have everything: money
and influence and power but also respect and deference and public support. Some very good books have been written about these
kinds of temptations. They can be found on the shelves of university libraries and the syllabi of the better humanities courses,
should administrators and board members care to look.
Reorienting higher learning around an ethical and studentcentered set of values won't come quick or easy. It will start with
some outside accountability for where students, especially undergraduates, truly rank on the list of institutional priorities.
We'll continue to play that role by shining a light on the many
16

September/October 2019

colleges and universities too busy helping diverse students improve their lives and careers to be caught up in the decadence of
the self-proclaimed leaders in the field.
These are highlights from this year's Washington Monthly
college rankings.

National Universities
Our list of top national universities is a mix of familiar elite
schools and public universities that should receive more credit
than they often do. There are a handful of top-flight private research universities, such as Stanford, Harvard, and Yale, with so
much money that they're able to provide generous financial aid
to low-income students, help them graduate, and support leading research all at the same time. They deserve credit, but they're
also using a model that can't be replicated or expanded at any
scale. Together, Harvard and Yale own more than 10 percent of
all the university endowment assets in America while enrolling
about .15 percent of all college freshmen.
Real improvement will mean following the example of institutions like Cal State-Fresno, our twenty-fourth-ranked national university, which enrolls an unusually large number of lowincome and first-generation students and helps them graduate
into good-paying jobs. For families that make less than $75,000,
the school's average net price is under $5,000. Or Rutgers University's Newark campus, which has a very high graduation rate given its economically and academically diverse student body and
produces graduates who are more likely than most to get good
jobs and pay back their loans.
Arizona State University has grown into a research powerhouse while keeping its admissions criteria open to a wide array
of students. It also has succeeded in fostering very high student
voting rates (see Daniel Block, "The Voting Wars Come to Campus," page 28), pushing it near the top of our service rankings.
There are also some familiar universities at the very bottom of our rankings. Liberty University president Jerry Falwell
Jr. is well known as an ardent supporter of President Trump and
a generous patron of Miami-area hotel pool attendants. But Liberty's graduation rate is eight percentage points lower than it
ought to be, given the makeup of its student body, and outcomes
for Pell Grant students are especially terrible. Yet Liberty charges
students from households earning less than $75,000 per year a
net price of over $24,000, one of the highest prices in the nation.
That forces Liberty students to take on a lot of debt. Five years
after leaving Liberty, only 50 percent of those students have paid
back even $1 on the principal of their loans. Liberty conducts little or no research, awards no doctorates in science and engineering, and, despite its alleged mission of "sensitivity to the needs of
others" and "social responsibility," makes almost no discernible
contributions to public service. We rank Liberty 387 out of 395.

Liberal Arts Colleges
Washington and Lee, our top-ranked liberal arts college, offers an
unbeatable combination of inexpensive tuition and great job out-

Washington Monthly - September/October 2019

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