Baptist schools among nation’s best, magazine ranking shows

Posted: 9/16/05

Baptist schools among nation's
best, magazine ranking shows

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP)–Colleges and universities historically affiliated with Baptist state conventions featured prominently, once again, in a popular annual ranking of schools–including several Baptist General Convention of Texas-affiliated schools.

U.S. News and World Report magazine's “Best Colleges 2006” issue listed 24 of the 53 members of the Association of Southern Baptist Colleges and Schools in the top halves of their respective categories, said the group's director, Bob Agee.

Baylor University was tied for 78th out of 248 schools in the category of “best national universities.” Those, according to the magazine, were schools that offer comprehensive undergraduate, master's and doctoral programs.

The magazine also ranked liberal arts colleges nationally as well as categories it called “comprehensive colleges” and “master's universities.”

Comprehensive colleges are schools that focus on undergraduate education but grant fewer than half of their degrees in traditional liberal arts disciplines, and master's universities are schools that offer a wide array of undergraduate and master's programs but grant few or no doctoral degrees.

Three Texas Baptist schools were included in top-half of the western division master's universities–Hardin-Simmons University (ranked 42nd), the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor (43rd) and Houston Baptist University (57th).

For western comprehensive colleges, East Texas Baptist University (11th), and Howard Payne University in Texas (13th) were ranked in the top half.

Rankings are based on a number of factors, including student-to-faculty ratio, selectivity of admissions, retention of freshman students, and four-year graduation rates. Schools also are sub-ranked in those categories