CSULB Again Stands Out in U.S.News & World Report

For the third consecutive year, California State University, Long Beach has been ranked third among the top public master’s universities in the west by U.S.News & World Report in its 2007 edition of America’s Best Colleges Guide, which was released in August.

Included among the 63 western master’s universities ranked by the magazine in its top tier, Cal State Long Beach once again was among the top 25 percent of 123 public and private universities in its category in the region.

“Despite the fact that most of the criteria used by U.S.News & World Report overwhelmingly favor small private institutions while underestimating the vastness of a public university’s social and economic contributions, we are very pleased to be ranked once again as one of the best in the nation and the west,” said CSULB President F. King Alexander.

“This is a tribute to the ongoing efforts of our world-class faculty and staff,” he added, “while also reemphasizing the important message that you do not have to spend a fortune to receive a highly valued and high quality collegiate experience today.”

President Alexander noted that CSULB also was recognized by U.S.News & World Report as a top institution in terms of the lightest debt load on its student. The university’s Class of 2005 graduated with the fifth lowest debt load among master’s universities in the west.

According to the publication, only 31 percent of those CSULB graduates carried debt, ranking the campus the fourth lowest nationally among all public and private universities in terms of the percentage of students graduating with debt. The magazine also reported that those limited number of CSULB students who incurred debt borrowed an average of $10,842, which is the 17th lowest average among all public and private universities in the country.

The data used to rank debt load included loans taken by students from the colleges and financial institutions as well as from federal, state and local governments.

In U.S.News & World Report’s survey methodology, colleges provide data for up to 15 indicators of academic excellence. Each factor is assigned a weight that reflects publication officials’ judgment regarding how much a measure matters. Finally, the colleges in each category are ranked against their peers, based on their composite weighted score.

Among the indicators used to measure the academic quality of the colleges and universities were peer assessment (weighted by 25 percent), retention (25 percent in master’s colleges), faculty resources (20 percent), student selectivity (15 percent), financial resources (10 percent) and alumni giving rate (5 percent).

As defined by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, institutions in the universities-master’s category provide a full range of undergraduate programs and some master’s level programs. They also offer few, if any, doctoral programs.