It’s that time of year again: College rankings are out, and LSU seems to have improved by different measures.
LSU upped its performance in the latest Washington Monthly College Guide and Rankings, which ranks all four-year schools based on their contribution to the public good in three broad categories: social mobility (recruiting and graduating low-income students), research (producing cutting-edge scholarship and Ph.Ds) and service (encouraging students to give something back to their country).
In the overall rankings, which combine public and private universities, LSU ranks 113th—a jump from 139th last year—placing the university above Penn State, the University of Massachusetts and the University of Colorado.
Furthermore, since 2018, LSU has climbed 20 spots to No. 71 among public universities nationwide, and moved up six spots to No. 24 among flagship universities. Among its public SEC peers, LSU ranks fifth—ahead of the University of Alabama.
The Washington Monthly rankings come as the Wall Street Journal ranks LSU 295th out of more than 800 U.S. colleges and universities in its annual college rankings, produced in conjunction with Times Higher Education. It’s a significant improvement from 2018, when the university ranked 443rd overall.
In an effort to emphasize how well a college prepares its students for life after graduation, the overall WSJ/THE rankings are based on 15 factors across four main categories: 40% of each school’s overall score comes from student outcomes, including measures of graduate salaries and debt burdens; 30% from the school’s academic resources; 20% from how well it engages its students and 10% from its diversity.
With an overall score of 53.5/100, LSU’s improvement seems to be fueled by its engagement (15.8/20). The university scored 22.3/40 for its outcomes, 10.8/30 for its resources and 4.6/10 for its environment.
Among other hidden gems highlighted in the WSJ/THE report: Louisiana Tech University matched Princeton in terms of students saying their college experience was worth the expense.
Read the LSU announcement detailing the Washington Monthly results, and check out the WSJ analysis of its rankings.
