U.S. News & World Report has released its annual survey of the top universities and colleges in the U.S. Predictably, Ivy League schools like Harvard and Princeton are at the top. Not to be outdone, other organizations such as Newsweek/Kaplan, Peterson, and Princeton Review have their own competing lists on the best colleges in the country.

How did my current employer, the University of MA, Amherst fare? Well, in the U.S. News rankings, we were ranked as the 50th best public university in the country and something like 84th overall. To be honest, that’s not terribly impressive. But the Princeton Review did place UMass Amherst near the top in other measures: #3 when it comes to “Long Lines and Red Tape,” #3 for “Students Dissatisfied with Financial Aid,” #9 for “Their Students (Almost) Never Study,” #13 for “Refer Madness,” #20 for “Campus is Tiny, Unsightly, or Both,” and perhaps most impressively, #9 in terms of “Party Schools.”

I suppose that’s better than my graduate alma mater, the University at Albany SUNY, which scored impressive wins in these categories: #1 for “Professors Make Themselves Scarce” and #1 for “Campus is Tiny, Unsightly, or Both.”

However, a different set of rankings has appeared -- Washington Monthly’s ranking of colleges on how well they are using public funds for good use in society, by being “engines of social mobility,” promoting knowledge and economic growth, and instilling “an ethic of service.” Overall, their top ten for national universities and liberal arts are (with the U.S. News rankings in parantheses for comparison):

National Universities
1. MIT (7); 2. UCLA (25); 3. UC Berkeley (20); 4. Cornell (13); 5. Stanford (5); 6. Penn State (48); 7. Texas A&M (60); 8. UC San Doego (32); 9. Univ. of PA (4); 10. Univ. of MI (25).

Liberal Arts Colleges
1. Wellesley (4); 2. Wesleyan (12); 3. Bryn Mawr (21); 4. Harvey Mudd (18); 5. Fisk (Unranked). 6. Amherst (2); 7. Haverford (8); 8. Wofford (55); 9. Colby (20); 10. Spelman (73).

As you can see, in terms of national universities, public universities fare better in the Washington Monthly list than in the U.S. News list. But alas, UMass Amherst is still nowhere to be found. Let’s see if the University of Massachusett’s flagship campus can do better next year . . .