U.S. News: Rowan among best, most innovative regional & public universities with a “top” engineering program

U.S. News & World Report today released its 2017 college rankings and, as in years past, scored Rowan University among the best schools in its category and region.

#5 Public University

In the Regional Universities/North category, Rowan was ranked #20 overall (tied with the State University of New York-New Paltz and the City University of New York-Baruch College) and 5^th among public schools out of 187 colleges and universities studied. At #20, Rowan’s overall position remained the same as in 2016.

#2 Most Innovative

In the study’s second year ranking schools for innovation, Rowan really shined, placing #2 out of the 187 schools in its category. For this ranking, U.S. News noted, “college and university presidents, provosts and admissions deans were asked to nominate up to 10 colleges or universities in their category that are making the most innovative improvements in terms of curriculum, faculty, students, campus life, technology or facilities.”

#22 Engineering School Nationwide

The news service ranks some programs like engineering separately and scored the Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering #22 out of more than 200 schools nationwide where the highest degree offered is a bachelor’s or master’s degree, a six-place improvement over 2016. In that ranking, which is based on surveys of engineering deans and senior faculty at other accredited engineering programs, Rowan has moved up 12 places in the last two years.

“While the U.S. News results are gratifying, our greatest measure of success is the education our students receive and how they do upon graduating,” said Rowan University President Ali Houshmand. “Our goal is to make higher education affordable and accessible so students graduate with comparatively low debt and are well-prepared for their career.”

Top 25% Nationwide

The U.S. News rankings come on the heels of last week’s College Factual/USA Today survey that recognized Rowan as the 327^th best out of 1,387 colleges and universities nationwide. That study also assigned Rowan a value ranking, which compares costs and other factors like degree completion time, of 305 out of 1,208 schools surveyed.

The rankings follow announcements in August by Forbes and Money magazines that ranked Rowan among the “Top Colleges” in the U.S. for 2016 and among the “Best Colleges 2016-17,” respectively.

The Forbes study was released in a special edition under the heading “America’s Top Colleges: the 600+ Schools Well Worth the Investment.”

#97 Public University

In May, American City Business Journals, the parent company of the Philadelphia Business Journal, ranked Rowan #97 among the top 477 public colleges and universities across the United States.