Rice fares well in new rankings

Rice University is No. 18 in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and Times Higher Education’s (THE) inaugural ranking of U.S. colleges. That’s just one of several recently announced rankings in which Rice has fared well.

The WSJ/THE rankings are based on postgraduation outcomes, such as career salary and amount of student loan debt; resources spent on academics, including the amount spent on instruction and academic services; student engagement, as reflected in students’ responses to surveys about students’ experience with their professors and whether they were pushed to think critically; and the racial, ethnic, socio-economic and international diversity of the learning environment.

Rice is No. 5 on the WSJ/THE’s list of Top Schools for Resources, which is based on academic spending, student-faculty ratios and research output.

Rice News has already reported that Rice moved up to No. 15 in the U.S. News & World Report rankings, up to No. 72 in the Academic Ranking of World Universities and up to No. 87 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, and that Rice is No. 1 for happiest students and lots of race/class interaction in the Princeton Review’s 2017 edition of “The Best 381 Colleges.”

Below are a few more recent rankings.

In the QS World University Rankings for 2016-2017, Rice moved up to No. 90 from No. 106 last year. These rankings factor in academic reputation, employer reputation, student-to-faculty ratio, research citations per faculty member and proportion of international faculty members and students.

In the Niche 2016 Best Colleges Ranking, Rice is No. 5, same as last year. Niche’s comprehensive assessment of more than 1,100 U.S. colleges incorporates millions of student reviews and key statistics about the academics, students, campus, local area, professors, dorms, food and athletics along with alumni data on earnings, employment, student loan debt and student surveys of how prepared they feel for life after college.

Rice is No. 10 on Forbes’ list of the 12 Best STEM Colleges for International Students. Among the criteria are quality of education; popularity of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) majors; total percentage of international students; percentage of increase of international students; and graduation rate for international students.

Rice is tied with Colgate University for No. 24 on the 2016-2017 PayScale College Salary Report. To determine the colleges where students with a bachelor’s degree earn the most money a decade or more into their career, PayScale reviewed the starting and mid-career salaries for more than a million college grads who completed its employee survey.

Rice is on the greatist.com’s 2016 list of the 26 Healthiest Colleges in the U.S. The numbered list reflects geography rather than any particular rank order and is based on universities’ responses to a questionnaire about dining services, fitness facilities, student mental and sexual health care, and policies and education about alcohol use.