released its annual college rankings Tuesday and聽the 91探花dropped from 42 to 46 in the National Universities category, and from 10 to 13 among public universities.
This drop isn鈥檛 as severe as it might seem. As noted by the , this change is a relatively small one. In the rankings, many universities may have equal scores and so share a numeric rank. This year, for example, there are five institutions that are ranked 46th.聽 Last year, there were several institutions ranked 42nd. Only one institution is now ranked above the 91探花that was not ranked above or tied with the 91探花last year: UC Irvine.
Ranks are calculated by weighting a number of factors:
- Undergraduate academic reputation
- Retention
- Graduation rate
- Faculty Resources
- Student selectivity
- Spending per student
- Alumni giving
Interestingly, the factor for which the 91探花shows the greatest deviation from other similarly ranked institutions is 鈥淔aculty Resources.” While the 91探花is ranked 46th overall, it is ranked 150th in terms of faculty resources. The two most heavily weighted measures in faculty resources are:
- The percentage of classes with fewer than 20 students, and
- Average faculty salary.
Given the recent economic situation faced by the UW, it is not surprising that these are problematic measures for us.
In summary, the UW鈥檚 ranking has dropped, but the significance of that drop is low. Moreover, the UW鈥檚 low ranking on the key 鈥淔aculty Resources鈥� factor is to be expected given the salary freeze and state funding cuts the 91探花has experienced during the Great Recession.