Kiplinger’s Magazine recently released their annual list of Top 100 U.S. Public Universities and I am glad to see that my current employer, the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, moved up from 81st last year to 63rd this year.

Certainly, such ratings can be rather temperamental and there is plenty of debate regarding whether they really measure an institution’s true quality. Nonetheless, progress is always a positive step and I hope that with Deval Patrick as Massachusett’s new governor, that UMass Amherst will continue to demonstrate its potential and climb in the rankings.

I should also note that my undergraduate alma mater, U.C. Irvine, made a huge jump from #70 last year to #17 this year, the biggest improvement of any school on the list. However, my graduate alma mater, the University at Albany, SUNY, dropped from #46 to #67 this year.