University of Florida tops new college rankings

The University of Florida is #1 in new college rankings created by City Journal and the National Association of Scholars. The University of Texas in Austin comes second on the list, MIT is 13th, Stanford 18th, Princeton 24th, Yale 30th and Harvard 37th.

There's "a mismatch between reputation and reality," write John D. Sailer and Kevin Wallsten, Manhattan Institute fellows. They collected data on 100 colleges and universities that score high in other rankings or have "major regional significance," and assessed by a wider range of measures.

Does the campus culture encourage free inquiry, or does it impose and endorse ideological orthodoxy? Is the curriculum rigorously designed and well-grounded in the Western tradition, or is it captured by ideological fads? Is the student body ideologically lopsided, or does it reflect the pluralism of American society? Do administrators prioritize “scholar activism” over academic excellence? Will the institution do a good job equipping its graduates to pay back their tuition and thrive as citizens, workers, and human beings?

At Harvard, they write, "a majority of its students are uncomfortable expressing their political views, the administration has a dismal record of preventing disruptive protest, curricular requirements are lax, only 3 percent of the faculty identify as conservative, there have been 12 instances since 2020 in which the administration sanctioned students or faculty for their speech, and the campus proudly employed more than 80 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion bureaucrats before a recent attempt at rebranding their DEI offices."

University of Florida isn't as selective as Harvard. But, the university "has a strong record on free speech," they write. "The school dismantled its DEI bureaucracy, denied campus radicals the right to take over classrooms and common areas, removed diversity statements from the faculty hiring process, and established the Hamilton School of Classical and Civic Education to lead a return to foundational education." In addition, UF does well on "student outcomes such as retention and graduation rates."

No schools earned 5 stars, and only Florida and Texas earned four. The top three-star schools are University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, Texas A&M, Notre Dame, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Purdue.

Colleges are raising tuition again, after years when tuition was frozen or went up less than the inflation rate, reports Hechinger's Jon Marcus. Dorm dwellers are paying more for room and board as well.

The Hechinger Report’s Tuition Tracker tool shows what students actually pay, based on their financial need, not just the list price on the web sites. After discounts and financial aid, students were paying less in real dollars from 2018 to 2023. But now costs are going up again.

"Even before this new round of price increases, fewer than half of Americans thought the returns on a four-year college education were worth the cost," according to a Pew survey, Marcus writes. "Now, at the same time many universities and colleges are raising their tuition, they’re cutting programs and laying off staff to close budget deficits. This means many students will be paying more and getting less."

Or choosing alternatives.

The high-prestige colleges will survive, but high-tuition, low-prestige colleges will not.