Education IT Reporter

Colby-Sawyer College has once again been recognized as one of the top colleges in the region by U.S. News & World Report, earning a pair of top 10 rankings in the publication’s 2023 Best Colleges issue.

The annual report, released Monday, ranks Colby-Sawyer in a tie for second place in its Best Undergraduate Teaching (North) category for regional colleges, and in the top 10 in its Best Regional Colleges (North) category for a sixth straight year. Colby-Sawyer also earned a 23rd-place ranking on the report’s Top Performers on Social Mobility (North) list.

“We are delighted to be recognized by U.S. News as one of the top institutions in our region,” said Colby-Sawyer President Susan D. Stuebner, who last week announced plans to cut tuition by more than 60% to $17,500 to begin for the 2023 academic year in an effort to increase transparency in college pricing. “Many prospective students and families find this information useful in their college searches. Our top 10 ranking affirms our institutional strength to prospective students.”

Colby-Sawyer ranks in a tie for second place in the report’s Best Undergraduate Teaching Among Regional Colleges (North) category, which recognizes schools where faculty and administrators have “an unusually strong commitment to undergraduate teaching” according to the U.S. News website. This is the third consecutive year that the college has ranked in the top three in the Best Undergraduate Teaching category, which utilizes the results of a peer assessment survey of college presidents, provosts and admissions deans to determine rankings.

“I am especially glad to see the college recognized again by U.S. News for our undergraduate teaching,” Stuebner said. “Our faculty are very talented and well-versed in their respective fields, and they work tirelessly to support our students’ growth academically. Whether it be teaching an introductory course or working with a student on their senior capstone, our faculty are deeply committed to student learning. US News’s ranking reflects their very hard work to help students explore, connect and make a difference.”

Colby-Sawyer earned a ninth-place ranking in the report’s Best Regional Colleges (North), placing ahead of 35 similarly sized institutions from Pennsylvania to Maine. The category ranks both public and private institutions focused on undergraduate education that grant fewer than 50% of their degrees in liberal arts disciplines. Of the eight schools to place ahead of Colby-Sawyer in the category, only four are privately funded.

Colby-Sawyer also placed 23rd in U.S. News’s rankings for Top Performers in Social Mobility (North) category. The category made its debut in the report’s 2020 Best Colleges issue and recognizes institutions for advancing social mobility by enrolling and graduating large proportions of students awarded Pell Grants.

U.S. News groups colleges into categories based on the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, which it calls the most widely accepted classification system in U.S. higher education. The report bills itself as the top peer benchmarking and performance assessment tool in higher education.