UVa named No. 4 best public school in the country

U.S. News & World Report’s annual “Best Colleges Report” — which has been ranking colleges for 40 years and plays a not-insignificant role in prospective students’ decisions and faculty and administration careers — named UVa the No. 24 best school overall and No. 4 best public school in the country.

UVa shared 24th place, which it also held last year, with two other schools in a three-way tie with Emory University in Atlanta and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., putting the flagship public university of Virginia neck and neck with two of the country’s top private schools.

The fourth-place honor was an improvement over last year, when UVa fell two spots on the public school rankings to No. 5. This year, the university is ranked just above the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill — keeping the oldest rivalry in the South going into the 21st century — and below the University of California, Los Angeles, at No. 1; University of California, Berkeley, at No. 2; and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor at No. 3.

U.S. News & World Report also ranked UVa No. 30 among schools offering the “best value” to students and No. 3 among the public schools in that category.

“We’re grateful that U.S. News has once again recognized the strength of the university and especially the success of our students,” Stephen Farmer, UVa’s vice provost for enrollment, said in a statement announcing the news. “Our mission is to welcome talented students from all walks of life and help them do and be their best.”

U.S. News & World Report has been using a new formula to assess the nation’s colleges since 2023 to “enable students to explore different criteria based on their individual interests and needs.” Some of the modifications included more emphasis on socioeconomic diversity and mobility.

At UVa, Farmer reported earlier this year that the 3,989 first-year students in the class of 2028 may be “the most socioeconomically diverse class in our history.”

Of these new arrivals to UVa Grounds, 18.8%, or 952 students, will be the first in their families to receive a college degree — a record for UVa. Last year, first-generation students made up 17.5% of the new class. This year, about 22.4% of first-year students, or 892 students, qualified for Pell Grants, a federal assistance program for lower- and lower-middle-income students, up from 16.4% last year.

For the second year in a row, UVa was ranked first among public universities on the “Best Colleges Report” for both its graduation rate of Pell Grant recipients and overall six-year graduation rate.

“Our reputation reflects the great work that goes on in our community every day,” said Farmer.

The No. 1 best college in the nation this year, according to U.S. News & World Report, was Princeton University in New Jersey once again.