How North Texas campuses ranked in the ‘2024 best colleges’

Southern Methodist University remains the top university in North Texas, and the University of Texas at Dallas is the third best public school in the state, according to the 2024 U.S. News & World Report’s “best colleges” rankings released Monday.

Annually, U.S. News evaluates about 1,500 institutions using more than a dozen criteria to publish rankings on the top national universities and liberal arts colleges. Some of the criteria include graduation rates, borrower debt and student-faculty ratio.

Six Texas universities made it to the top 100 national universities, with Rice University remaining the Lone Star State’s best national university, according to U.S. News’ ranking.

Following Rice at 17th place, the University of Texas at Austin came in 32nd, Texas A&M University in 47th, SMU in 89th, Baylor University in 93rd and Texas Christian University in 98th.

UT-Dallas moved up 36 spots from last year, landing in the 115th position in the national universities ranking.

In the top public schools ranking, UT-Dallas ranked 58th, 14 spots higher from last year.

The Dallas university came in third place for public schools in Texas, followed by UT-Austin in 9th place and Texas A&M in 20th.

“Each year, UT-Dallas is recognized more for what it has become: home to a high volume of innovative research and rigorous academic programs that stand out among their peers,” said Inga Musselman, the university’s provost and vice president for academic affairs, in a written statement. “This gratifying recognition highlights the dedication of our faculty, staff and students who propel our dynamic, young university forward.”

College rankings have been heavily criticized in recent years for prioritizing prestige, reputation and wealth over social mobility and return on investment.

In August 2022, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said publicly that college rankings are “a joke.”

“We must stop conflating selectivity with excellence,” Cardona said. “We must stop correlating prestige with privilege. We must embrace a new vision of college excellence.”

Throughout the fall of 2022, highly ranked law and medical schools announced they would no longer submit data and cooperate with the U.S. News ranking process.

But the same didn’t happen with highly ranked colleges and universities at the undergraduate level, with the exception of Columbia University.

The Ivy League university located in New York City was at the center of many criticisms over rankings after one of its own faculty members publicly criticized the institution for submitting misleading data to U.S. News. Columbia later acknowledged having made errors.

This year, U.S. News added new criteria to the evaluation process, including graduation rates for first-generation college students and proportion of college graduates earning more than a high school graduate.

The company said the changes in methodology are an “effort to place more emphasis on social mobility and outcomes.”

Despite the recent criticism, U.S. News said that about 80% of nearly 1,500 colleges evaluated submitted data for the ranking process, compared to 84% last year. From the top 100 national universities, 99 submitted data.