Augustana is proud to announce that it has been ranked a Top 5 Regional University in the Midwest in Best Value by U.S. News & World Report’s 2024 Best College Rankings — viewed as the gold standard in college rankings lists. In addition, U.S. News ranked Augustana No. 17 in Best Regional Universities in the Midwest, and AU is listed in other Best Regional Universities Midwest categories, including No. 4 in Best Undergraduate Teaching and No. 11 in Most Innovative.
“Being recognized as a top-five best value is a tremendous honor, as it represents both our strong academic reputation throughout the Midwest, as well as the commitment Augustana has made to making a world-class educational experience affordable for all students,” said Associate Vice President of Enrollment Management Adam Heinitz ‘99.
In its 39th edition, U.S. News ranked schools according to their performance across a set of widely accepted indicators of excellence. Nearly 1,500 U.S. 4-year bachelor's degree-granting institutions were surveyed on as many as 19 measures reflecting academic quality and graduate outcomes, as well as considerations that vary person-to-person, such as campus culture, strength in specific majors and financial aid offered. To account for this, U.S. News supplemented its overall rankings with specialized subject and cost-oriented rankings, customizable search tools, education journalism and a detailed school directory with exclusive academic and nonacademic information.
U.S. News identifies a regional university as one that offers a broad scope of undergraduate degrees and some master's degree programs with few, if any, doctoral programs — ranking them in four geographical groups: North, South, Midwest and West.
To place each school in its ranking, U.S. News maps its categories to the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education's Basic Classification system, which is the accepted standard in U.S. higher education. The U.S. Department of Education and many higher education associations use the Carnegie system to organize or label their data, among other uses.
“These rankings consider so many variables, so to find yourself near the top in a variety of categories really speaks to the excellence, commitment and innovative spirit displayed by our students, faculty, staff and alumni,” said Heinitz.
How Augustana ranks in other publications:
- The Princeton Review recently ranked AU as one of its 2024 Best Regional Colleges and Best Green Colleges.
- Niche ranked Augustana among the 2024 Best Colleges in South Dakota — giving the university a grade A- or above in academics, athletics and student life.
- AU is a 2023 Leading Colleges Award Recipient in Outcomes and was designated a Military Friendly School.
- Augustana has been named once again as a 2024 Hidden Gem in the U.S., as well as a Top 25 Plains Region College by College Raptor.
- WalletHub ranked Augustana as one of its 2023 Best Universities — the top university in South Dakota and No. 157 out of more than 800 universities nationwide across 30 key measures, ranging from student-faculty ratio and graduation rate to post-attendance median salary.
For more rankings related to Augustana University, visit augie.edu/rankings.