Northwestern College is ranked sixth among 76 Midwestern regional colleges in U.S. News & World Report’s 2022 Best Colleges guidebook. Northwestern is also one of 33 Best Value Schools and 38 institutions cited as Top Performers on Social Mobility. The rankings, which include more than 1,400 schools nationwide, are available at www.usnews.com/colleges.
“Once again we are pleased that the high quality of a Northwestern education has been affirmed by a strong ranking from U.S. News,” says Greg Christy, Northwestern College’s president. “This recognition joins strong rankings from organizations like Money magazine and College Consensus, which rated us as the nation’s second-best Christian college. These rankings—as well as top scores by our students on actuarial, CPA, MCAT, nursing and psychology exams—add external validation to the praises we consistently hear from alumni and students. 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, graduation rate and graduate indebtedness), faculty resources (including class size, the percentage of faculty with the top academic degree, student-faculty ratio and compensation), expert opinion, student excellence, social mobility, financial resources and alumni giving.
Northwestern is in the top 10 in several individual categories, including six-year graduation rate, third at 68%; peer assessment, fifth; and alumni giving rate, 10th.
