ACU was ranked 21 out of 95 universities across 15 states in the west by the U.S News and World Report released last week.
Other rankings the institution received from the U.S. News and World Report include:
- No. 4 in the most innovative schools
- No. 10 in best value schools
- No. 13 in best colleges for veterans
- No. 14 in best value college
Dr. Phil Schubert, university president, said the reputation of the institution being cutting-edge has grown over the years and this recognition comes on the heels of the school’s success and established reputation.
“For a long time we have, appropriately so, had a reputation in the higher education landscape of being an institution that was willing to think out of the box,” Schubert said. “We’ve tried a lot of new things. We have been able to help others with new ideas and new teaching methods and I think that is just a reputation that ACU has appropriately developed over the course of time and people recognize that.”
The university worked to lower the costs of tuition, and Schubert said affordable quality education for students is a high priority taken seriously by the school.
“I think it always takes a tremendous amount of discipline to make decisions in a way that balances the needs of the institution to deliver a very high-quality educational experience, as well as balancing that with the commitment to remain affordable to our students and their families,” Schubert said. “We spend a lot of time in our leadership team meetings talking about that balance and then being creative about how we can improve the educational experience for students and at the same time lower the cost.”
Though the school ranks highly, Schubert said the graduation rates of students is an area the institution can improve on.
“For me, it’s not enough if we have any student that is notable, if they have a desire to be here, to get through school,” Schubert said. “Students start out the journey to get to college for a reason so we need to be a place that does everything we can to make sure that they finish that process”
According to the U.S. News and World reports schools are ranked according to their performance across indicators of excellence.
The university was also recognized in the past few months by the Princeton Review as one of the “Best in the West”, by Forbes as one of “America’s top colleges” and was recognized by the Wall Street Journal.
