New College of Florida received another impressive national ranking with the U.S. News & World Report “Best Colleges 2017” edition, released today.
The magazine ranked New College as the No. 5 public liberal arts college in the nation. It marks the 12th consecutive year New College has been listed in the top six public liberal arts colleges nationwide.
The magazine also listed New College as a great financial deal for students and their families. New College ranked 7th nationwide for “Least Debt” among all liberal arts colleges. New College’s 2015 graduates owed just $14,929 on average.
The magazine’s statistics pointed to several reasons for New College’s strong showing.
- Top-performing students. Nearly half of incoming freshmen (43 percent) were in the top 10 percent of their high school graduating class.
- Small classes. Almost three-quarters of its classes (73 percent) have 20 or fewer students; just 1 percent has 50 or more students.
- Better than six out of 10 New College students (62 percent) graduate with no debt at all, 13th in the country.
The U.S. News listing follows two other impressive performances in national college guides. In August, The Princeton Review named New College as among the top 15 percent of all U.S. colleges and universities in its guidebook, “The Best 381 Colleges.”
And this month, Washington Monthly ranked New College 20th among all liberal arts colleges nationwide in its “2016 College Rankings Issue.”
The rankings come at an exciting time for New College, with construction beginning on a major expansion to its Heiser Natural Sciences complex and the arrival of one of the largest and most diverse incoming classes in the College’s history.