Westmont Magazine Our National Ranking
The annual back-to-school ritual now includes the “U.S. News & World Report” guide to “America’s Best Colleges.” Each September the magazine ranks schools on reputation, selectivity, faculty resources, financial resources, retention, and alumni satisfaction. Using the Carnegie classifications , “U.S. News” groups the institutions in four tiers.
Westmont, one of 161 “highly selective” national liberal arts colleges, appears in the third tier. It spent $9,645 per student, while the others in its tier averaged $12,794. Westmont’s retention and graduation rates listed in the survey exceeded the averages of other institutions, but alumni giving (17 percent) fell short of the tier average of 35 percent. The biggest gap lies in endowment. Westmont’s is $10 million, but 11 schools in the tier have more than $50 million.