UA Ranked in U.S. News' Top 50 Public Universities, Perennially Ranked Business School Maintains Lofty Status

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - The University of Alabama is named one of the top 50 public universities in the nation in the newly-released U.S. News & World Report rankings for 2002.

The magazine cited UA’s 83 percent freshman retention rate among the statistics used in compiling the rankings. From 1993-1999 UA’s first-year retention rate improved by almost 5 percent.

Also, UA’s Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration was, once again, ranked in the top 50 of all undergraduate business programs, both public and private, joining four other Southeastern Conference schools.

In the magazine’s ranking of all doctoral universities, public and private, UA was one of two universities in the state ranked in the second tier of the nation’s top universities. The second tier includes those universities ranked just below the top 50. According to the magazine’s web site, there are 249 universities in the country offering a wide range of undergraduate majors as well as master's and doctoral degrees.

Other universities in the second tier include such schools as the universities of Florida, Georgia, Colorado, and Connecticut as well as Auburn, Ohio State, Purdue, and Florida State.

Last spring in U.S. News’ rankings of graduate schools, UA’s School of Law was ranked 46th in the nation, making the list of top 50 law schools for the third consecutive year.

In recent years, UA has been named one of America’s top 100 values in public higher education in a study by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine and has been listed in numerous national publications citing its quality and value including Barron’s “300 Best Buys in College Education,” and America’s 100 Best College Buys” published by John Culler & Sons.