Owensboro, Ky. (Sept. 9, 2015) – U.S. News & World Reportreleased its annual list of Best Regional Colleges on Wednesday. Of the 98 institutions profiled for the South region, Kentucky Wesleyan College checked in at #27, a 13 percent improvement over last year. Wesleyan out-performed all but one other school (Asbury University, at #3) in the Commonwealth, and enjoyed the highest ranking for schools in the Western part of the state.
Rankings are based on numerous factors, including freshman retention and graduation rates, student/faculty ratio, alumni giving percentage, and percentage of classes at fewer than twenty students. Eighty-four percent of classes at Wesleyan are comprised of fewer than twenty students, which ranks 16th in the country out of the 363 regional schools profiled for the study.
“I am very pleased, not only as president, but also as an alum, to see us ranked highly by U.S. News & World Report,” said President Barton D. Darrell. “Even though we ranked highly last year, I am even more excited that we made such a statistically significant jump to our current ranking. We take great pride in what we do at Kentucky Wesleyan and how we do it. Our faculty, staff, alumni, other supporters of the college and our terrific student body deserve credit for this recognition and ranking. We will, however, refuse to be satisfied and will work even harder to raise our rankings to even higher levels.”
According to the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, regional colleges focus almost entirely on the undergraduate experience and offer a broad range of programs in the liberal arts, business, nursing, and education.
Other Kentucky schools appearing in the rankings include Asbury (3rd), Alice Lloyd College (30th), Brescia University (50th), Midway College (54th), and Kentucky Christian University (58th). A complete list of all rankings can be found at www.usnews.com/bestcolleges.
–Kentucky Wesleyan College-