September 13, 2023

Susquehanna University is listed again in the Wall Street Journal/College Pulse 2024 ranking of the nation’s top 400 colleges and universities.

SU is ranked No. 19 among the colleges and universities in Pennsylvania. The university is ranked No. 196 nationally for social mobility, which measures how much a college improves their students’ socio-economic status. The social mobility metric featured universities that admitted a high proportion of students from low-income families while maintaining high graduation rates and graduate salaries at a lower cost of attendance.

The university’s nationwide rank is No. 275.

The WSJ/College Pulse 2024 Best Colleges in the U.S. ranking was developed and executed in collaboration with research partners College Pulse and Statista. In a change from previous rankings, this year’s effort focuses more on outcomes, emphasizing how well a college prepares students for life after graduation. The overall ranking is based on 12 factors across three categories:

  • 70% of each school’s overall score comes from student outcomes, including a measure of graduate salaries;
  • 20% from the learning environment a school provides to its students, including the quality a college’s facilities and teaching and the quality frequency of opportunities for students to prepare for their future careers; and
  • 10% from the diversity of its students and staff, including economic diversity.

The ranking was constructed by applying statistical analysis to official government data, combined with responses from one of the largest independent surveys of verified students ever conducted in the U.S. Data was also gathered from in the U.S. Education Department’s College Scorecard and Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System and the 2021 U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Ethnic diversity is measured using the Gini-Simpson Index.