Friday, Aug. 19, 2005 | 10:58 a.m.
For the sixth year in a row, UNLV is in the bottom fourth of U.S. News and World Report's "America's Best Colleges" rankings.
The Las Vegas university has not budged from the bottom tier since it broke into the national rankings in 2001. Prior to that, UNLV was considered a comprehensive, master's college and was only ranked regionally by the nationally recognized guidebook.
The guidebook, used to help high school students narrow down their college selections, hits newsstands Monday. It ranks schools several factors, including peer assessment, average freshman retention rate, the six-year graduation rate, the size of classes, selectivity and alumni giving.
UNLV performs below other national universities in most of those areas, Bob Morse, director of data research for U.S. News said, particularly in its graduation rates. Only about 41 percent of UNLV students entering in 1998 had earned a diploma by 2004, compared with the national average of 60 percent.
UNLV also performs below its Reno counterpart, UNR, according to U.S. News. UNR ranked in the third tier, posts slightly higher numbers than UNLV across the board with the exception of alumni giving, the percentage of students in the top 10 percent of their class and the acceptance rate.
UNR accepts 87 percent of its applicants compared with 81 percent at UNLV. UNR students, however, average about 40 points higher on the SAT than UNLV students. Neither university requires the test for admission.
Morse said what really sets the two schools apart is the graduation rates. About 49 percent of UNR students graduated within six years, according to data the university provided to U.S. News.
That disparity aside, UNR and UNLV are about on the same plane in most of the rankings, Ray Alden, executive vice president and provost at UNLV said. He said its tough to tell how far UNLV really is below UNR because schools are not ranked within the third and fourth tiers.
UNLV also has changed rapidly in the last several years, Alden said, and it will take a long time for those changes to start affecting the rankings. For instance, the university will not be able to see what effect its first class of Millennium Scholarship students had on its graduation rate until 2006, two years away from being reported in the guidebook.
"Anything we do to improve graduation rates takes six years to show up," Alden said.
UNLV opened University College last fall to help improve both retention and graduation rates by catching those students who are stuck between two majors or who do not have the GPA necessary to enter one of the university's other colleges, Alden said. The university is also hiring about 18 new advisers for this fall to better direct students into the courses they need for graduation.
But what will help the university the most, Alden said, is the higher admission standards going into place. Currently, the university must accept everyone with a 2.5 GPA or higher, but in 2006 that bumps to 2.75 and in 2010 it will go to 3.0.
UNLV President Carol Harter said that because selectivity is so closely tied to the other factors affecting the university's overall performance, she plans to ask the Board of Regents in December to consider increasing the GPA requirement to 3.0 by 2007 instead of 2010.
Better prepared students should do better at the university, Alden said, therefore upping both retention and graduation rates. If UNLV is to improve, it will also have to further limit its growth by directing more students to Nevada State College and the Community College of Southern Nevada.
Many of the factors U.S. News uses to judge universities may be beyond UNLV's ability to control because of its limited resources and rapid growth, both Alden and Morse said. It's tough to reduce class size and to increase the number of full-time faculty without more resources.
Harter said she believes the university's capital campaign, which will be officially launched in September, will provide the school with the resources needed to make other improvements.
"We're working in both of those areas very rigorously to move UNLV into a more prestigious status," Harter said.
UNLV and UNR may be similarly hampered by their missions, Morse said. Both are still expected to provide access to higher education to the general public.
Jim Rogers, chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education, said the rankings show a need for improvement at both universities. He said he'll definitely be directing his new vice chancellor for academic and student affairs, former Chancellor Jane Nichols, to take a closer look at the graduation rates at both UNLV and UNR.
"We are going to bust our butt to make sure that is going to change," Rogers said.
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