In its fourth year, UTRGV beat schools such as Texas State University and University of Texas at Dallas to rank No. 4 in Texas on bestcolleges.com, moving up nine spaces from last year.
“I couldn’t be happier,” UTRGV President Guy Bailey said last Tuesday. “I think this kind of destroys a lot of stereotypes about UTRGV. We are not a school of last resort; we are a really high-quality institution.”
Bestcolleges.com has been ranking colleges since early 2015 with its first list published in 2016.
The website obtains its data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System and College Navigator, which are both operated by the National Center of Education Statistics.
Each school goes through a proprietary algorithm to determine its annual rank. The process includes a combination of subcategories included in the academic quality and affordability sections, which are its two main ranking factors.
Bestcolleges.com has also set minimum requirements in order to qualify in the rankings, according to its website. Those requirements include submitting an annual report to the National Center for Education Statistics, granting a four-year bachelor’s degree, and being an accredited public or private, not-for-profit institution.
Each rank showcases a few main points at first glance, which include cost of attendance, graduation rate, location, ranking score and a brief description, all of which are submitted by the school to the National Center of Education Statistics.
Quinn Tomlin, media relations manager for bestcolleges.com, said UTRGV ranked high and stood out because of its variety of available programs and affordability.
UTRGV’s on-campus ranking score is 73.68, which is only a .03 point difference in comparison to the third-ranked school in the state, Texas A&M University in College Station, whose score is 73.71.
Elyanna Garcia, a transfer student from the University of Texas at Austin, said she noticed UTRGV’s ranking on the website when seeing UT Austin was No. 1.
“Being so close to home, I didn’t think that the university had grown so much until I actually arrived here,” Garcia said.
The bestcolleges.com website shows UTRGV has been accredited for 62 years.
“Everything for data is stored by what they call an IPEDS number, and it’s a number that is assigned to the school and so if in [the] merger they kept the older number, that would continue the accreditation,” Tomlin said.
UTRGV kept the University of Texas Pan American’s IPEDS number when it merged with the University of Texas at Brownsville in 2015 and is shown to be accredited since July 1, 1956.
In an interview with The Rider, Bailey said UTRGV’s current accreditation probation status does not affect its state ranking.
“The probation does not affect our accreditation at all,” Bailey said.
In December 2017, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges requested validation from an external auditor concerning issues found in UTRGV’s Fiscal Year 2016 audit, according to a Sept. 17 message from the president sent to faculty and staff.
The Texas State Auditor’s Office reviewed UTRGV’s financial aid cluster in June of this year.
SACSCOC officials will visit UTRGV in early October to verify all of the SAO’s findings have been fully addressed.
Asked about the status of UTRGV’s accreditation probation, Bailey replied, “Well, all we need to do to get off probation is we need a clean financial aid audit.”
SACSCOC will notify UTRGV of its official decision in December.
The university has a 41 percent graduation rate, according to bestcolleges.com. This number reflects the graduation rate of the University of Texas Pan American.
Tomlin said bestcolleges.com considers both graduation and transfer rates; however, transfer rates are not posted on the website.
“One of the things that does fit well for [UTRGV] is that [it has] a high transfer-out rate,” Tomlin said.
UTRGV’s transfer-out rate is 24 percent.
The Rider asked Bailey if the 41 percent graduation rate is an accurate number.
“It’s accurate, but remember, UTRGV does not have graduation rates yet,” he said. “Those are all UTPA graduation rates. And the reason they had to use those, remember that our first group of entering freshmen don’t graduate until this year.”
UTRGV was established in Fall 2015, which means its first official class will graduate next May.
New graduation rates for UTRGV will be established then.
UTRGV’s online college ranks on bestcolleges.com as No. 5 in the state.
Moreover, the university is recognized as No. 79 out of 316 schools in the nation in Washington Monthly, which annually rates four-year schools based on their contribution to the country with data provided by IPEDS.
Washington Monthly’s ranks are based on social mobility, research and service.
The president said he thinks Washington Monthly is an even better ranking than bestcolleges.com.
“The only two public universities in Texas ranked ahead of us were UT and A&M,” Bailey said.
For the list of rankings, visit bestcolleges.com.
