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Two Recent National Rankings Recognize SLU for Excellence in Undergraduate Education

Undergraduate education at Saint Louis University has earned top marks in two recent national rankings. U.S. News & World Report named SLU one of the nation’s best values in higher education, and Niche – a website that ranks colleges, schools, neighborhoods and companies – named SLU the No. 8 Catholic university in America.

U.S. News Rankings 

U.S. News & World Report released its 2019 Report Best Colleges Rankings for undergraduate education Sept. 10. 

SLU ranked No. 106 or in the top third of all national universities. The University was also ranked No. 36 on the list of “Best Value Schools.” U.S. News calculates value by comparing a school's academic quality vs. the net cost of attendance for a student who received the average level of need-based financial aid. 

SLU was ranked for No. 26 for the best undergraduate teaching among national universities. This is a new ranking based on surveys of top college officials. SLU was tied with Georgetown, Northwestern, Tufts and American universities on this list. 

Four undergraduate programs in the Richard A. Chaifetz School of Business were ranked in the nation’s top-50. (The school also has four top-50 graduate programs.) 

Below is a summary of SLU’s U.S. News undergraduate rankings for 2019: 

Among the indicators U.S. News uses to calculate the overall university rankings, SLU improved in eight areas, including first-year retention and the percentage of freshmen in the top 10-percent. 

In submitting data for this year’s rankings, SLU incorrectly reported a lower graduation rate, which is one of U.S. News’ key measures. It’s not known how much the data reporting error impacted the University’s overall ranking, but the publication has confirmed that it will use the correct data in calculating the 2020 rankings. 

Niche Rankings 

Niche – formerly known as College Prowler – released its 2019 College Rankings Aug. 27. In them, Saint Louis University was also ranked as the No. 2 university in Missouri among private and public institutions in the state. 

On a national level, Niche ranked SLU in the top-100 in eight categories: 

Best Colleges for Nursing in America
5 of 599 

Best Colleges for Kinesiology and Physical Therapy in America
8 of 417 

Best Catholic Colleges in America
8 of 165 

Best Colleges with No Application Fee in America
20 of 511 

Best Colleges for Criminal Justice in America
42 of 506 

Colleges with the Best Professors in America
47 of 1,615 

Best Colleges for Education in America
74 of 751 

Best Colleges for Business in America
85 of 1,016 

Niche also ranks colleges and universities on a state level. In addition to being ranked No. 2 overall among both private and public institutions in Missouri, SLU also received top-five statewide honors for academic programs in the following areas: 

For its annual college rankings, Niche evaluated more than 1,000 schools using admission, financial and student life data collected from the U.S. Department of Education, as well as more than 30 million college reviews and survey responses from students.