Clarke Named U.S. News Top Tier College and Receives ‘Great School, Great Price’ Recognition

Clarke College was again named to U.S. News & World Report magazine’s top tier of midwestern Colleges in the “Best Comprehensive Colleges-Bachelor’s” category in the magazine’s annual guidebook, “America’s Best Colleges.” The 2006 edition of “America’s Best Colleges” is available on-line today at www.usnews.com.

Clarke was ranked 24th overall among the 54 institutions in the top tier and was the highest ranked College in the tri-state area. This is the 13th time in 13 years Clarke has been named a top tier school.

This year, Clarke was also one of only 10 schools in its category to be named to the U.S. News “Great Schools, Great Price” ranking. Clarke ranked ninth in the category.

According to U.S. News, “the formula used to determine which schools offer the best value relates a school’s academic quality, as indicated by its U.S. News ranking, to the net cost of attendance for a student who receives the average level of need-based financial aid. The higher the quality of the program and the lower the cost, the better the deal. Only schools ranked in the top half of their categories are included, on the premise that the most significant values are among Colleges that are above average academically.”

“We are extremely pleased to again be recognized as a U.S. News top tier College, and more importantly, to be recognized for our outstanding value,” said Clarke President Catherine Dunn, BVM, Ph.D. “We work diligently to make a Clarke education affordable to our students while providing them with the best possible education. This recognition reaffirms our success.”

U.S. News defines “Comprehensive Colleges-Bachelor’s” as institutions which focus on undergraduate education and offer a range of degree programs in the liberal arts, which account for fewer than half of their bachelor’s degrees, and in professional fields such as business, nursing, and education.

The method that U.S. News uses to rank Colleges and universities consists of three basic steps. The schools are categorized primarily by mission and, in some cases, region, and data is gathered from each institution on up to 15 indicators of academic excellence. The indicators used to measure academic quality fall into seven categories: retention, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources, graduation rate performance and alumni giving rate. The indicators include input measures that reflect a school’s student body, its faculty, and its financial resources, and outcome measures that signal how well the institution does its job of educating students.