DSU Rises to 14th in HBCU Rankings; 4th Among Public HBCUs
Delaware State University has moved up seven spots to 14th in the U.S. News & World Report’s annual rankings of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and 4th on the list for top ranking public HBCU.
According to the latest rankings released on Sept. 13, DSU has moved up from last year’s from 21st to 14th place out of the 105 HBCUs.
DSU President Harry L. Williams said that DSU’s higher ranking is reflective of the hard work of faculty and staff to improve student success.
“A big indicator of the University’s effectiveness in student success is found in retention and graduation,” Dr. Williams said. “Those are areas that DSU has been able to progressively improve and they are also major categories in the U.S. News & World Report’s annual HBCU rankings.”
The magazine’s rankings are based strongly on retention and graduation rates – 27% of the ranking criteria scoring. The other categories and the weight they are given include: peer assessment (25%), faculty resources (20%), student selectivity (12.5%), financial resources (10%), and alumni giving (5%).
President Williams stated “DSU’s improvements in its retention and graduation rates are strong factors in Del State’s rise in the rankings.”
The highest variables in the ranking formula are retention and graduation rates. The University has been aggressively moving the retention and graduation rates in the last several years. The magazine’s scoring of retention and graduation rates are an average of the rates of the last four years.
In addition, DSU’s improvement in alumni giving was another factor in its rise in the 2016 rankings.
“I would like to thank DSU’s faculty, staff, students, alumni and Board for their tireless, unwavering commitments to the accomplishments at Delaware State University,” says President Williams.