U.S. News & World Report Names Elmira College "Best Regional College"
Elmira, NY (09/09/2019) — In its just-released 2020 BEST COLLEGES rankings, U.S. News & World Report ranked Elmira College sixth among the Best Regional Colleges in the Northeast and second among Best Value Colleges in the Northeast.
"We are honored to once again be included at the top in the U.S. News & World Report's BEST COLLEGES rankings," said Elmira College President Dr. Charles Lindsay. "Elmira offers students an engaging and immersive education plus career and alumni support well after their four years on campus."
The Best Regional Colleges rankings assess academic quality. The statistical indicators fall into eight broad areas: social mobility; first-year student retention and graduation of students; expert opinion; faculty resources; student excellence; financial resources; alumni giving; and graduation rate performance, which is a comparison between the proportion of students expected to graduate and the proportion who did graduate.
The Best Value Colleges list takes into account a school's academic quality, as indicated by its 2020 U.S. News Best Colleges ranking, and the net cost of attendance for a student who received the average level of need-based financial aid. The higher the quality of the program and the lower the cost, the better the deal. Only schools ranked in or near the top half of their categories are included because U.S. News considers the most significant values to be among colleges that are above average academically.
"There is a national concern about the rising cost of a college education - and we agree," said Lindsay. "To that end, and effective with the 2019-2020 academic year, Elmira College's tuition and fees were reset to $35,400 ($33,900 tuition plus $1,500 fees) - a decrease of 15%. This moves Elmira's tuition rate to one of the lowest undergraduate tuition prices of any four-year private college or university in the region."
The College was also ranked fifth in the Most Innovative Schools and Top Performers on Social Mobility lists. Most Innovative Schools included those making the most innovative improvements in terms of curriculum, faculty, students, campus life, technology or facilities, while Top Performers on Social Mobility gives a nod to those institutions which are more successful than others at advancing social mobility by enrolling and graduating large proportions of disadvantaged students.
Elmira College has also been listed by the Princeton Review as a Best National College, by Forbes on its America's Top Colleges list, by the Washington Monthly as a Best Bachelor College, and named a College of Distinction for innovative learning opportunities and expert blending of the liberal arts with professional programming in business, education, and nursing.