BSU Recognized With Highest U.S. News Ranking Since 2010

September 22, 2023

Bemidji State University has received its highest U.S. News and World Report ranking in nearly 15 years, placing 83rd amongst regional universities in the Midwest region in the publication’s America’s Best Colleges 2024 rankings. The rankings were announced September 18, 2023, and updated on October, 27, 2023.

Now in its 39th year, the U.S. News & World Report evaluates schools on hundreds of data points using up to 17 measures of academic quality.

Bemidji State is tied for 83rd amongst all Midwest universities with Emporia (Kansas) State University and Stephens College in Colombia, Missouri. Amongst public institutions, BSU is tied for 26th in the region.

BSU’s overall rank of tied for 83rd place is its highest since U.S. News & World Report changed its scoring methodology in 2014, and its highest ranking overall in the America’s Best College rankings since 2010.

Other rankings

In addition to the overall regional rankings, BSU appeared in several other rankings announced in conjunction with America’s Best Colleges 2024.

  • BSU ranked 124th amongst universities in the Midwest region in social mobility, which ranks how well schools enroll and graduate large proportions of underrepresented students who receive Pell Grants from the federal government.
  • In national rankings, the publication ranked BSU’s nursing program as tied for 402nd and its psychology programs as tied for 411th. The U.S. News nursing rankings are determined by the average of scores received from surveys of top academics and officials at nursing schools or departments. For psychology, scores are based on the results of peer assessment surveys.

About the U.S. News & World Report rankings

U.S. News & World Report began publishing college rankings in 1983. America’s Best Colleges 2024 is online now and a print version was available on newsstands beginning in September 2023.

The publication defines regional universities as institutions offering a full range of undergrad programs with some master’s programs but few if any, doctoral programs. The Midwest region of the rankings includes institutions in North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.

For its ranking of public colleges and universities, U.S. News considers institutions that typically operate under the supervision of state governments and are funded, in part, by tax dollars and subsidies from the state. As a result, these universities often offer discounted tuition to residents of their states.

BSU has appeared on the U.S. News list of the Midwest region’s top universities each year since 2009. U.S. News & World Report’s rankings categorize schools based on mission according to classifications developed by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and, in some cases, by geography.

The information presented in the 2024 U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges rankings and directory was collected during the spring and summer of 2023 via the publication’s annual online statistical survey of colleges. A complete explanation of the publication’s methodology for determining school rankings [is available on its website].

NOTE — This story was updated on October 27, 2023, to reflect new information from U.S. News and World Report. The publication announced on October 27, 2023, that rankings for numerous schools had been recalculated as a result of a data anomaly that affected the initial release of rankings on September 18, 2023. As a result of this recalculation, BSU’s ranking in the Midwest region amongst regional universities improved from 88th to 83rd.

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