Northwestern College is ranked sixth among 70 Midwestern regional colleges in U.S. News & World Report’s 2020 Best Colleges guidebook. Northwestern is also one of 31 Best Value Schools. The rankings, which include nearly 1,400 schools nationwide, are available at www.usnews.com/colleges.
“We are always pleased when Northwestern’s standout education is affirmed by rankings and our peer institutions,” says Greg Christy, Northwestern College’s president. “Our latest U.S. News ranking joins strong rankings from organizations like Money magazine, Forbes and College Consensus, which rated us as the nation’s fourth-best Christian college. These rankings—as well as achievements like our second-in-the-nation CPA exam pass rate and MCAT scores in the top 25 percent worldwide—add external validation to the praises we consistently hear from alumni and students about the strength of the Northwestern experience. They affirm the excellence of our faculty as they prepare students to lead lives of significance.”
The U.S. News rankings are based on key measures of quality such as outcomes (freshman retention and graduation rate), faculty resources (including class size, the percentage of faculty with the top academic degree, student-faculty ratio and compensation), expert opinion, student excellence, financial resources and alumni giving.
Northwestern is in the top 10 in several individual categories, including peer assessment, first-year retention rate (79%), graduation rate (69%), first-year students in the top 25 percent of their high school class (53%) and alumni giving rate (18%).
