WEST LIBERTY, W.Va., Sept. 23, 2019 — U.S. News & World Report’s college rankings this year feature a new social mobility ranking and West Liberty University ranked at the number 12 spot in the new list. This is the highest ranking for a West Virginia college or university.
“West Liberty University has a long history of serving students who are first generation college students and those who are challenged financially, so we are pleased to be named a Top Performer on Social Mobility in the recently released Best Colleges 2020 rankings,” said Dr. Stephen Greiner, WLU president.
“The new ranking ‘evaluates which schools best serve underrepresented students’ and analyzes enrollment and graduation rates of low-income students with Pell Grants as a proxy,” wrote USA Today recently after the release of the rankings.
Like all U.S. News college rankings, schools are sorted into regions and WLU is included in the Regional Universities in the South.
The Baltimore Sun explained why the Social Mobility rankings matter: “Students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to graduate college than other students.”
“A university is not successful if it does not graduate its students,” Robert Morse, the U.S. News & World Report’s college rankings guru, told the prestigious Chronicle of Higher Education. “By including social mobility indicators, U.S. News is further recognizing colleges that serve all of their students, regardless of economic status.”
West Liberty University has the highest four-year public graduation rate in West Virginia, according to recent statistics.
West Liberty University is West Virginia’s oldest public university and offers more than 70 undergraduate majors, plus a growing number of graduate programs, both online and on campus.
For more information, please call 1.866.937.8542 (WESTLIB), visit westliberty.edu or follow WLU on social media. To view more about WLU, please visit westliberty.edu/youtube.