Fredonia moves up in college rankings by Washington Monthly

SUNY Fredonia has jumped up in two major categories in Washington Monthly’s annual rankings of almost 400 national colleges and universities.

Washington Monthly “rates how well schools graduate low-income students, produce groundbreaking scholarship, and encourage students to serve their country.”

In the publication’s annual rankings of “America’s Best Bang for the Buck” Colleges, Fredonia jumped almost 20 places to 63rd in the Northeast. “Best Bang for the Buck Colleges” are ranked “according to how well they help non-wealthy students attain marketable degrees at affordable prices. The list is created by isolating the social mobility metrics from the main rankings of four-year institutions.” 

SUNY Fredonia also jumped over 20 places on the publication’s rankings for Master's University colleges; four-year institutions that award almost exclusively bachelor’s degrees and that focus on arts and sciences rather than professional programs, based on their contribution to the public good in three broad categories: social mobility, research, and promoting public service. SUNY Fredonia is now ranked 59th, which makes it one of the highest-ranked SUNY institutions on the list.

Washington Monthly’s rankings are in the publication’s September/October 2021 issue. 

Washington Monthly is a non-profit publication that covers politics and government. According to the publication’s website "as it has since 2005, Washington Monthly ranks colleges and universities on three broad criteria: the degree to which they recruit and graduate students of modest means (with Pell Grants as the main data point), produce the scholarship and scholars that drive economic growth and human flourishing (with federal research dollars a central measure), and encourage students to be active citizens (with national and community service participation a key variable). The Monthly’s rankings are crafted to push institutions of higher learning to be engines of upward mobility, scientific progress, and democratic participation.”