Michigan Tech Shines in Wall Street Journal Rankings
Michigan Tech ranked 149th out of 800 colleges and universities in a new Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education ranking released this week.
According to the Wall Street Journal web site, the ranking is based on 15 factors across four categories: Forty percent of each school's overall score comes from student outcomes, including how they fare after leaving campus, 30 percent from the school's resources, 20 percent from how well it engages its students and 10 percent from the learning environment, or diversity. The ranking is based in part on 100,000 student surveys.
The students' responses were a factor mostly in the engagement section. The ranking values schools that focus their spending on classroom instruction and rewards both teaching and research excellence. It also places emphasis on student outcomes. It doesn't consider how selective a school's admissions are. Socioeconomic and racial diversity are also considered.
No public universities were ranked in the top 20. That's because the ranking bases 30 percent of a school's total score on its resources, as measured by instructional spending, student-faculty ratios and research output, and public universities generally have less money to spend in these areas than private schools, says the WSJ web site, pointing out that per-student public funds for higher education remained 15.3 percent below the 2008 level in fiscal 2015, according to a State Higher Education Executive Officers report.
"This ranking recognizes Michigan Tech's commitment to excellence in teaching and research, despite our financial limitations," said President Glenn Mroz.
"It also reflects the outstanding nature of our student outcomes, with 94 percent employed in their field within six months of graduation and starting salaries over $60,000."