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Saturday, Aug. 8, 2009 | 2:05 a.m.
Two Nevada public schools made Forbes’ list of America’s Best Colleges this year.
UNLV placed 486 while UNR came in at 406.
The second-annual ranking compiles the top 500 colleges and universities in the country, basing the criteria on how well a school meets student needs.
More specifically, the ranking is based 25 percent on student satisfaction with course instruction, 25 percent on indicators of post-graduate employment success, 16.67 percent on the likelihood of graduation within four years and 20 percent on estimated loan debt. In addition, the list takes into consideration 13.33 percent of student and faculty academic and research awards.
The list was compiled by Forbes and the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. It includes both private and public institutions.
In 2008, UNLV ranked 393; UNR was not included on the list.
The U.S. Military Academy topped the list this year, beating Princeton University, which formerly held the No. 1 spot.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, there are more than 4,000 colleges in the country, and the CCAP only ranks the top approximately 15 percent of all undergraduate institutions.
“We’re very pleased to have made the list,” said Jane Tors, director of media relations at UNR. “There are thousands of colleges and universities across the U.S. I would love for us to be higher, but I think being on the list is certainly an achievement.”
Tors said it is just another reason for the university to strive to do better.
“We set a mark we can seek to improve on,” she said.
UNLV officials were not available for comment on Friday.
Wow. Take a closer list at the rankings. UNLV and UNR are both Carnegie I institutions and they got beat, badly, by some relatively unknown upstarts.
This is, at best, only OK news for UNR and DISASTEROUS news for UNLV.
We'll see if that 18K housing allowance and 8K car allowance for the new president (oh and did mention the 275K salary?) will amount to any (academic, not athletic) progress for UNLV.
Let's not forget some of the things forbes uses:
1. ratemyprofessor.com rankings. that's silly.com
2. 4 year graduation rate. unlv's average undergrad graduates at 27 years old, is a part-time student who we should be proud of for going back to school. forbes thinks we should be penalized for serving our community. six year rate would be better. the percent who actually graduate would be even better. e.g., the AVERAGE time to an engineering degree is 6.5 years at unlv. and, yes, unlv should be working on ways to shorten the time it takes.
3. award winning. if unlv studies las vegas and the desert environment, it will serve its community, but not win many national awards.
Bill777 Whats your point? So you are more qualified to make these determinations than Forbes? If Forbes gave allowances for every meaningless excuse offered up by students,alumni, or fans of a particular university then what would be the point?Just what the hell does community service have to do with this ranking anyway? All things considered UNLV with all of it's troubles should feel fortunate to even be mentioned. Community service give me a break.
How 'bout comparing the rankings of UNLV to the other (public) schools in the MWC? Utah and Wyoming both made the top 20 public schools (#'s 16 and 17 respectively) while UNLV didn't even make the top 100 of those. Ouch.
Ironically, both of those schools come from the two most republican states. Hmm.
my point is that you have to take these things with an understanding of how they are calculated.
in a normal year, a couple hundred of your 28,000 students go to ratemyprofessor, should they provide 16% of the weight of the ranking of your school?
should awards won by faculty be the way to measure how valuable your school is to your community or even to the country?
we know, for example, that the entire reason unr is above unlv in the US News rankings is that they put 30% weight on budget per student. since unlv can produce equal results in the other categories with $2,500 less per student, shouldn't that make unlv HIGHER ranked than unr?
unlv was a "national flagship university" in US News, then two years later was a fourth tier regional, then a couple years later a low rated national. if your campus hasn't changed much, and is probably actually getting better, how can your rankings be moving like the ride on top of the stratosphere?
in my opinion, why argue about how they rate crappy schools? in my opinion, I would never send my kids to unlv even if it was free.
Well, I'm not high on UNLV as a leading academic institution, but it does have some quality programs.
But has anyone taken a look through the list? It is absurd. In the overall list, the University of Texas (the Austin campus) is ranked No. 174. The University of Puget Sound is ranked higher at No. 143. Cornell is No. 207. The University of Wisconsin (Madison campus) is No. 415.
I would rather have a degree from these lowly campuses like Cornell, Texas and Wisconsin rather than Puget Sound or some of the other high-ranking institutions like the New College of Florida (No. 61).
The only things I can think of is either Forbes doesn't have random drug tests, or the weighting of their criteria leaves a little something to be desired.
I'm a litt
My wife and I both graduated from the Clark County school system (we all know how much that is maligned), got degrees from UNLV, were accepted to one of the best schools in the UK for our Masters, and now are at Notre Dame (a "top 20" school and a "new Ivy League institution" according to US News, but ranked only no. 50 by Forbes) getting PhDs. My point is that education is what you make of it. Sure, there are obviously better public school systems than we have in Clark County, and better state schools than our Nevada schools, but you can still get a great education, get into top-rated graduate/professional programs, and get high-paying jobs if you are willing to work hard. For instance, I have other friends who are CCSD/UNLV graduates who went onto top law, dental, and medical schools (e.g., Northwestern, Harvard).
Furthermore, overall rankings often don't matter as much as departmental rankings. For instance, Wisconsin (no. 415) has one of the best sociology departments and one of the best German departments in the country; Texas (no. 174) has one of the best English programs; and UNLV (no. 486) and Cornell (no. 207) are the top two schools for hotel adminsitration.
The point is, as Bill777 correctly notes, is don't put too much stock into these rankings without recognizing how they are calculated.
And to nevadaappleslices, I'm guessing your disdain for UNLV comes from the fact that you probably couldn't get accepted.
Go Rebels!
haha, rejected from UNLV? that is the funniest thing that I've heard all day.
I think UNLV needs to continue to shift from an athletic focus to a academic/research focus. Maybe expanding the universities size could be a way to diversify the cities economy? A large university would bring more young people to the city and a focus on scientific study could make Vegas more attractive to research organizations.
Wow! It is amazing how little many know about UNLV. There is a huge amount of research going on at the campus. The school has some top 5 programs. Including Hotel Administration, Educational Psychology, and Educational Administration.