Wall Street Journal ranks Samford top university in state

Samford University in Birmingham is the top-ranked university in Alabama according to new rankings released Sept. 26 by The Wall Street Journal.

Samford is ranked 226th out of the 1,054 U.S. universities and colleges that appear in the new student outcome and teaching-focused rankings.

But Samford isn’t the only Alabama Baptist school on the list; University of Mobile was listed in the group of schools ranked 601st to 800th.

Other Alabama colleges and universities listed include: the University of Alabama at Birmingham (243), Tuskegee University (265), Auburn University (273), the University of Alabama (398), Spring Hill College in Mobile (483), Birmingham-Southern College (496), University of South Alabama in Mobile (601–800) and Alabama A&M University in Huntsville (above 800).

Samford President Andrew Westmoreland said, “Rankings are just one measure of a university’s effectiveness and reputation, but it is especially rewarding to be so highly ranked in our state and nationally by an organization as prestigious as the Journal. Because student engagement and outcomes are key to these rankings, it affirms the work of our faculty and staff in providing the rigorous academic preparation our students need to be successful in the marketplace.”

The Journal ranking emphasizes how well a college will prepare students for life after graduation. The Journal reports that the national ranking values schools that focus their spending on classroom instruction and rewards both teaching and research excellence. To that end, the overall ranking is based on 15 factors across four categories: Forty percent of each school’s overall score comes from student outcomes, including a measure of graduate salaries, 30 percent from the school’s academic resources, 20 percent from how well it engages its students and 10 percent from the diversity of its students and staff.

Data sources for the rankings include the Times Higher Education U.S. Student Survey of 200,000 current U.S. students and the annual Times Higher Education Academic Reputation Survey, along with public data on areas including completion rates, graduate employment and loan repayments. (Samford, TAB)