Penn State continues to struggle with value, US News & World Report’s 2024 rankings show
Penn State remained steady in most categories featured in the latest batch of U.S. News & World Report college rankings, but it still trails its academic peers for value.
Penn State’s flagship University Park campus tied for No. 30 nationally among public universities, falling a few spots from its No. 28 ranking last year. When ranking for the “best value,” Penn State checked in with a national ranking of No. 184 out of 206, finishing dead last among its Big Ten peers. That bottom-of-the-pack finish includes the newest members of the now-18-member conference as of August 2024: the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the University of Southern California (USC), the University of Washington and the University of Oregon.
Many of Penn State’s rankings for academic programs or majors remain largely unchanged from last year’s rankings, but adding four schools to the Big Ten’s rankings pushed Penn State’s in-conference ranking down in a few categories.
“Strong placements in rankings such as U.S. News reflect our ongoing commitment to excellence in our threefold mission of teaching, research and service,” Tracy Langkilde, Penn State’s interim executive vice president and provost, said in a statement. “Every day, our faculty and students are making a difference in the world, creating and sharing new knowledge and discoveries through our $1.2 billion research enterprise that further enhance the experiences of our undergraduates by incorporating research into student learning. A Penn State degree is both valuable and life-changing. A vital part of our mission as Pennsylvania’s flagship public university is to provide opportunities for first-generation students and talented individuals from diverse and low-income backgrounds to gain a college education and use it to improve their lives and the lives of others.”
Here’s what you should know about Penn State’s placement within the latest batch of Best Colleges Rankings from U.S. News and World Report.
Penn State’s rankings at a glance
Penn State checked in at No. 63 within the overall national rankings, according to U.S. News. That marks a slight decline from 2023 (No. 60), but an improvement or a tie from 2022 (No. 77) and 2021 (No. 63). Despite the small drop, Penn State remains ahead of the University of Pittsburgh (No. 70), Drexel University (No. 86) and Temple University (No. 98), among other Pennsylvania schools.
Penn State once again faltered regarding “best value” schools. U.S. News says it calculates its value rankings by examining academic quality, the percentage of undergraduate students receiving scholarships, the percentage of students who don’t need to pay back their scholarships and the average discount from a school’s sticker price. High quality and low costs will drive a school toward better value within the rankings.
Only five Big Ten schools cracked the top 100 in “best value:” Northwestern University (No. 15), the University of Michigan (No. 59), USC (No. 65), Purdue University (No. 66) and the University of Wisconsin (No. 89).
Penn State again ranked last among all Pennsylvania schools included in the “best value” rankings. Temple, ranked No. 72 overall, is the only other school on the list categorized as one of Pennsylvania’s four state-related schools, which receive similar appropriations funding from the commonwealth. Pitt and Lincoln University, the other two state-related schools, were not included in the value rankings.
High-profile discourse over tuition at Penn State, which has been raised for five straight years, has not helped the university’s fight to improve its perceived value. University trustees voted to approve a 2% tuition increase for in-state University Park undergrads and a 4% hike for out-of-state students at the flagship campus for the 2025-26 academic year. Under those prices, average in-state and out-of-state students will pay about $20,468 and $42,860 in tuition per year, respectively.
Penn State program rankings
Penn State’s program-specific rankings mostly observed modest changes this year, but a few stayed put entirely.
The university’s undergraduate nursing rankings took the biggest fall, dipping from No. 31 overall last year to No. 54 in 2024. General rankings for Penn State’s business, economics, psychology and engineering programs are largely unchanged from 2023, but most dropped a spot or two in the overall rankings.
Elsewhere, Penn State fell one spot to No. 37 among the best colleges for veterans. However, that figure ties the university at No. 10 among Big Ten member schools.
Penn State rose a few spots within the rankings for “Top Performers on Social Mobility,” which assesses how well schools support economically disadvantaged students. The university is up to No. 336 in 2024 after placing No. 342 in 2023 and No. 401 in 2022.
How are rankings created?
For years, U.S. News rankings have been called the “gold standard” of college rankings. Accredited schools are eligible for inclusion in the rankings if they are located in the U.S., enroll at least 100 students, are accepting applications and offer a six-year bachelor’s degree graduation rate of full-time, first-year students.
Examined data points change from ranking to ranking, but U.S. News most often looks at more than a dozen factors for each school, including graduation rates, student retention, financial aid, faculty salaries, standardized testing, research output, post-graduation pay rates and debt, among other factors. Expert opinion also plays a limited role in the rankings.
Data sources for U.S. News rankings include the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, plus third-party sources and its own data collection. Schools that do not respond to U.S. News surveys are not excluded from rankings, but their data may instead come from third-party sources.
Several changes were made to the process while forming this year’s rankings, U.S. News says. Notably, the group removed six-year bachelor’s degree graduation rates for first-generation students from its ranking factors for national universities and replaced it with up-weighting Pell Grant student graduation rates. U.S. News also removed first-generation student graduation data from some rankings and expanded a factor that examines college graduates’ federal loan receipts earning more than a typical high school graduate.
What do other rankings say?
Forbes recently ranked Penn State’s University Park campus No. 196 through its “America’s Top Colleges” list. Penn State’s flagship campus checked in as the No. 9 university in Pennsylvania through Niche’s most recent rankings.
All of Penn State’s US News rankings
Here’s a closer look at Penn State’s latest rankings, according to U.S. News. Note some schools may not be ranked if they do not offer particular majors or did not submit relevant information to U.S. News during the rankings process.
Best National Universities: tied-63rd (14th in Big Ten)
Best Public Schools (National Universities): t-30th (12th in Big Ten)
Best Value Schools (National Universities): 184th (18th in Big Ten)
Best Undergrad Nursing Programs: t-54th (11th in Big Ten)
Best Undergrad Teaching Programs: Not ranked
Best Undergrad Engineering Programs: t-20th (9th in Big Ten)
Top Majors in Engineering Programs: Aerospace/Aeronautical/Astronautical — t-16th; Biological/Agricultural — 11th; Chemical — t-23rd; Civil — t-14th; Computer — not ranked; Electrical/Electronic/Communications — not ranked; Environmental/Environmental Health — not ranked; Industrial/Manufacturing — t-11th; Materials — t-10th; Mechanical — t-14th; Petroleum — t-4th
Best Undergrad Business Programs: t-23rd (9th in Big Ten)
Top Majors in Business Programs: Accounting — t-36th; Finance — t-36th; Management — t-28th; Marketing — t-39th; Production/Operations Management — 13th; Supply Chain Management/Logistics — t-10th
Best Undergrad Computer Science Programs: t-40th (12th in Big Ten)
Best Undergrad Economic Programs: t-43rd (t-9th in Big Ten)
Best Undergrad Psychology Programs: t-34th (t-10th in Big Ten)
Most Innovative Schools (National Universities): Not ranked
Best Colleges for Veterans (National Universities): t-37th (t-10th in Big Ten)
Best Performers on Social Mobility (National Universities): t-336th (14th in Big Ten)
Check out the full rankings by visiting usnews.com/best-colleges.
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