UNE included among best colleges on three prestigious national lists

The University of New England announced that it has been included among three highly esteemed “top colleges” lists again for the academic year 2019: the Princeton Review’s Best Colleges, Forbes’ America’s Top Colleges, and U.S. News & World Report’s America’s Best Colleges in its “Best Regional Colleges” category for the North.

This is the sixth year in a row that UNE has been ranked among the country’s top institutions of higher education by Forbes and the fourth year running that it has appeared on the Princeton Review’s list. U.S. News & World Report has rated the university a “Best Regional University” in the North for eight consecutive years, raising its rank by four spaces from last year.

“Inclusion on these prestigious lists is always a significant achievement for colleges and universities,” remarked UNE President James Herbert, Ph.D. “It is now apparent that we are sustaining that level of excellence year after year. That is particularly noteworthy in these difficult times for institutions of higher education. We’re watching as many colleges and universities have been forced into mergers or have closed their doors altogether. We know that UNE is holding strong, and seeing the university ranked among the very best schools in the nation is an affirmation of that strength of which we can all be proud.”

The three lists employ different sets of criteria to calculate their rankings. The Princeton Review, for example, rates institutions of higher education in eight categories, including academics, admissions, quality of life, financial aid and environmental friendliness, while Forbes takes a different approach, examining alumni salaries, debt after graduation, retention and graduation rates, and student experience as well as academic and professional signs of success. Methodology used by U.S. News & World Report focuses on a broad range of indicators, including assessment by administrators at peer institutions; student to faculty ratios; student selectivity, alumni giving rates, and the percentage of first-year students who graduated in the top quarter of their high school class.