U.S. News and World Report released their 2024 “Best Colleges” rankings Sept. 18, with St. John’s University earning an overall position of 163rd out of 439 participating institutions. The University was recognized for social mobility, business programs, insurance programs and veteran-friendly schools.
In last year’s rankings, the University placed 166th overall — up three spots and up from a 170th ranking in 2020. These numbers were calculated from University-provided data in Summer 2023.
The University ranked 42nd in social mobility, recognizing the institution for “enrolling and graduating large proportions of disadvantaged students awarded with Pell Grants,” according to U.S. News and World Report. To calculate this ranking, U.S. News looks at the University’s Pell graduation rates and Pell graduation performance. In 2023, St. John’s was ranked 41st. The University is currently tied with Rutgers University-New Brunswick and Aurora University in Illinois.
The Maurice R. Greenberg School for Risk Management, Insurance and Actuarial Science ranked ninth in the nation, dropping down two spots from last year’s rankings.
The Peter J. Tobin College of Business ranked 135th, rising 29 spots from last year’s 164 in the report’s “Best Undergraduate Business Program” accolade. Tobin’s part-time Master of Business Administration (MBA) program ranks 68th.
St. John’s also ranked 113th among the best schools for veterans and active-duty military members. The University prides itself in “working with military students and veterans to ensure awareness of the VA education benefit program(s),” according to their website.
Rankings are decided through 19 “measures of academic quality,” including graduation rates, first-year retention rates and graduation rate performance. These measures are “compared with the mean and standard deviation of other schools to create a normalized report,” according to U.S. News.
The establishment made changes from last year’s calculations, removing factors such as “alumni giving, class size, high school class standing, the proportion of instructional faculty with terminal degrees and the proportion of graduates who borrowed federal loans,” to focus more on outcomes.
View St. John’s University’s 2024 full U.S. News and World Report rankings here.
