U.S. News & World Report Undergraduate Rankings Analysis

U.S. News & World Report Undergraduate

Rankings Analysis

Office of Institutional Research and Planning

Page 1 of 19

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Each year U.S. News & World Report (USNWR) releases its annual Best Colleges rankings. Georgia Tech moved from

35 in the 2021 ranking to 38 in the 2022 national universities ranking, while falling from 8

place in public universities

rankings to 10

place. This report provides a deeper look into the data measures behind the U.S. News & World Report

rankings and Georgia Tech’s performance based on these measures.

It is important for Georgia Tech constituents to understand the measures and the assumptions behind the U.S News

rankings.

• Georgia Tech’s Strategic focus area Expand Access may have an effect on Retention and Graduation Rate

metrics given the attention on removing barriers for financially vulnerable students and those traditionally

underrepresented at Georgia Tech. This particular strategic focus area expands access to populations that have

traditionally had lower retention and graduation rates, and may impact the Retention and Graduation Rate

performance metrics (weighted at 30%) for Georgia Tech. Conversely, expanding access slightly improves the

Social Mobility measures (weighted at 5%). Georgia Tech should develop communication strategies that focus on

societal impacts of expanding access to underrepresented populations against potential impact(s) or changes in

rankings.

• Class size within the Faculty Resources category also played a significant factor in Georgia Tech’s change in

rank. Georgia Tech has a low percentage (33%) of classes that have 20 or fewer students and a high percentage

(28%) of classes with 50 or more students. Only one institution in the top 50 national universities, the University of

California-Davis, had a lower percentage of classes with 20 or less students (32%). (Table 2).

• Approximately 40% of Georgia Tech’s 2020 undergraduate students obtain student loans during their

undergraduate careers. The average indebtedness for Georgia Tech students after graduating with a bachelor's

degree is $31,545. Both (a.) the percentage of most recent graduates with debt and (b.) the average amount of

debt incurred are used to calculate the indebtedness. Student indebtedness is weighted at five percent (5%) in

the overall rankings.

• Georgia Tech’s six-year Pell graduation rate reported to IPEDS for 2020 was 86% compared to the institution’s

overall six-year graduation rate of 90%. U.S. News compares the six-year graduation rate for Pell recipients and

divides this number by the overall graduation rate, then adjusts to give much more credit to schools with larger

Pell proportions. Although Georgia Tech has a high graduation rate for Pell students, institutions with much lower

retention rates score higher in this metric due to the adjustments made for high Pell populations. The Chronicle of

Higher Education (August 2021) listed Georgia Tech as 12

place in Public Colleges with the best graduation

rates for Pell students in the public 4-year institution category. This is in stark contrast to the 259

place ranking

on Social Mobility in the U.S. News ranking.

• Georgia Tech ranked 59

in the Financial Resources per Student measure. This measure uses the average

spending per student on instruction, research, student services and related educational expenditures in the 2020

and 2021 fiscal years. Georgia Tech has the lowest instructional expenses per FTE ($12,188) and lowest

academic support expenses per FTE ($2,741) of all its peer institutions (Figure 3 & 4). Georgia's low-cost of living

and non-union workforce are factors that lower Georgia Tech's overall instructional expenses and academic

support expenses per FTE student. Although Georgia Tech is not the lowest in student service expenses per

FTE student, it is at the bottom third in expenses for its peer group. Georgia Tech has a disadvantage in this

particular metric due to the lower price parities in the Southeastern United States compared to higher-cost areas

like the Northeastern United States and California.

Listed below are the metrics used in the U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges rankings and the impact in rankings.

Each metric is discussed in greater detail within the report.

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Metric

Weighting

Impact

Graduation and Graduation

Rate Performance

30%

High impact. Georgia Tech scores very well in

graduation metrics. The weighting of graduation

measures is higher than all other rankings.

Social Mobility 5%

Minimal impact. There is very little Georgia Tech can

do to improve the social mobility score (ranked 327

)

since many schools have much higher percentages of

Pell students and improvement in this area must be

above and beyond the overall average to move up in

the rankings. Georgia Tech's Pell graduation rate (86%)

is much higher than many of the institutions that score

above it in this measure.

Faculty Resources 20%

High impact. Georgia Tech can improve in this area by

decreasing class sizes, particularly the number of

classes with more than 50 students.

Financial Resources per

Student

10%

Some impact. Since Georgia is a low-cost state, the

amounts spent per student in instructional, academic,

research, and student support are much lower than

our peers. The research expenditures per FTE student

have been the key factor in Georgia Tech's scores in

this ranking. There is very little that Georgia Tech can

do in improving this metric.

Student Selectivity 7%

Some impact. Georgia Tech is a selective institution

and scores well in the student selectivity measure.

Graduate Indebtedness 5%

Minimal impact. Although Georgia Tech tuition and

fees are lower than many of the top-ranked colleges,

40% of undergraduates obtain student loans with

maximum loan amounts. Of interest is the number of

in-state students with Hope and/or Zell who borrow at

maximum loan amounts.

Peer Assessment Survey 20%

High impact. Georgia Tech scores well in the peer

rankings, indicating positive reputation and peer

perceptions of the institution.

INTRODUCTION

Each year U.S. News & World Report (USNWR) releases its Best Colleges rankings. U.S. News collects data on

approximately 1,466 schools with over 1,000 schools described as “rank not published.” U.S. News releases its rankings

each fall as many prospective students are deciding where to attend college. Consumers of the data often look to

rankings reports to determine the “quality” of an institution.

The survey methodology is continuously refined each year based on user feedback, literature reviews, trends in data, and

the availability of new data. Yearly changes to the rankings methodology make it difficult to make comparisons from one

year to the next. A college that is ranked 3rd one year and 6th the next may have had no change in its performance

relative to other schools, yet still move in rank because of changes in the ranking methodology. It is important to

understand that changes in rankings often do not correlate to changes in quality at an institution, but rather to changes in

survey methodology.

This report provides a deeper look into some of the data elements behind the USNWR rankings and Georgia Tech’s

performance based on these measures.

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ANALYSIS OF RANKING METRICS

UNDERSTANDING HOW THE RANKINGS WORK

USNWR Best Undergraduate College rankings are the sum of weighted, normalized scores across 17 indicators of

academic quality to determine each school’s overall score and rank. The top performers in each ranking display an

overall score of 100. Schools that are not the top performer in the rankings score 0 to 99 points reflecting the distance

from each ranking’s top-performing school(s).

Critics have pointed out that the use of overall scores to rank schools magnifies small—and often insignificant—

differences among schools and that small changes by the school or the magazine can move a college half a dozen places

up or down the ranking list (Crenshaw, 1999).

It is important to recognize and understand how USNWR measures relate to the Georgia Tech environment and overall

ranking. Although Georgia Tech has made significant improvements in several measures, it is important to recognize that

a school does not go up in the rankings by simply improving certain metrics. The improvement in each metric must be

above and beyond what the overall average improvement is for all schools. For example, Georgia Tech traditionally

performs well in terms of graduation rates. Graduation rates have also been increasing nationally. Georgia Tech has

improved its graduation rate by 8% in the past five years, surpassing the national average improvement of 2.6% in the

same time period.

Scores that are well above the average for each measure are strongly rewarded with points in the scoring measure, while

scores below the average are severely punished with few or no points for the scoring measure. The rewards or

punishments to the institution vary based on the factor weight. Schools that are the highest ranked are those that have

scored significantly above their competitors in a few key elements. Further examination of why one or a few schools are

ranked above Georgia Tech, comes down to just a few specific categories wherein the higher ranked school outperformed

both the national average and those schools that are close in rank.

CHANGES OR ADJUSTMENTS TO THE 2022 RANKINGS

The following are changes made to the 2022 Best Colleges’ rankings:

• Adjustments to how SAT/ACT scores are assessed. If the combined percentage of the fall 2020 entering

class submitting test scores was less than 50% then the combined SAT/ACT percentile distribution value used in

the rankings was discounted by 15%.

• Graduate indebtedness total and graduate indebtedness proportion were changed to average schools' scores

from the 2021 and 2020 rankings to mitigate year-to-year volatility due to COVID.

• Course size for the 2022 rankings included courses designed for in-person instruction but delivered remotely due

to COVID-19 were included and a 2-year average was calculated.

• Faculty salary data is calculated based on a 2-year average using the AAUP definition.

• Other changes include average class size and the student indebtedness indicators are now based on two-year

averages when previously, only one year of data was used.

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GEORGIA TECH OVERALL RANKINGS (2018-2022)

Table 1: Five- year U.S. News rankings trend for Georgia Tech, 2018 – 2022

Year

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

Overall Ranking 34 35 29 35 38

Overall Score (0-100)

Graduation and Retention rank (30%)

Average six-year graduation rate (17.6%) 86% 85% 87% 90% 90%

Predicted 6yr graduation rate

(part of Grad rate performance measure)

90% 89% 89% 89% 91%

Graduation rate performance (8%) -4 -4 -2 1 -1

Average first-year retention rate (4.4%) 97% 97% 97% 97% 97%

Social Mobility Rank (5%)

224 259 327

Pell Graduation rate (2.5%)

81% 84% 86%

Peer Assessment Score (1-5 scale, 20%) 4.2 4.3 4.3 4.3 4.3

Faculty resources rank (20%) 178 117 42 84 176

Percent of classes under 20 (8%) 38% 39% 45% 44% 33%

Student/faculty ratio (1%) 20 to 1 22 to 1 21 to 1 19 to 1 18 to 1

Student Excellence Rank (7%) 22 19 18 19 20

SAT/ACT 25th-75th percentile (5%)

1320-

1500

1370-

1520

1390-

1540

1370-

1530

1370-

1530

First-year students in the top 10% of HS class (2%) 87% 88% 89% 90% 88%

Financial Resources Rank (10%) 55 61 58 59 59

Alumni Giving Rank (3%) 26 32

Alumni Giving Rate 24% 21% 19% 17% 15%

Graduate Indebtedness Rank (5%)*

Graduate indebtedness total (3%)

$31,545

Graduate indebtedness proportion with debt (2%)

40%

*New for the 2022 Edition.

•

From 2018 to 2021, Georgia Tech’s overall score rose steadily from 68 to 75 out of 100. Comparing the overall

score from 2021 to 2022, the two schools who tied in rank with Georgia Tech - Boston College and University of

California (Irvine) both moved up in the overall score from 75 to 76 points advancing both colleges to 36

in the

national university rankings.

Even if Georgia Tech’s score remained at 75 instead of decreasing to 74,

Georgia Tech’s 2022 rank would still be 38

•

Georgia Tech has increased its six-year graduation rate over the past five years from 86% to 90%.

• Overall, there are several metrics where Georgia Tech is ranked very low compared to other top schools.

o The Social Mobility rank for Georgia Tech is 327, which was the 8th lowest ranking of the top 50

institutions.

o Georgia Tech’s faculty resources rank is the third-lowest for top universities (176) followed by Ohio State

University-Columbus (189) and University of California-Davis (189). The low ranking is due in part to class

size counting 8% of the ranking score. Georgia Tech has the lowest percentage of classes with

enrollment at 20 or fewer students (33%) followed only by Ohio State University-Columbus (32%) and

University of California-Davis (30%).

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Graduation, Retention and Graduation Performance Rates (Weighted at 30% combined)

Georgia Tech’s ranking in this category is 36

nationally.

i. Six-year Graduation Rate (17.6%)

ii. First-year Retention Rate (4.4%)

iii. Graduation Rate Performance (8%) (Calculated separate

Figure 1

Six-year Graduation Rate (17.6%)

The six-year graduation is a four-year rolling average of the proportion of each entering class (fall 2011-2014) earning a

degree in six years or less. Data for this measure is obtained using the IPEDS Graduation Rate Survey.

• Georgia Tech’s most recent graduation rate is 90%. Seven schools that are ranked above Georgia Tech had

lower graduation rates (University of California-Irvine (85%), -San Diego (87%), and -Santa Barbara (89%);

University of Rochester (86%), Wake Forest (89%), University of Florida (89%), New York University (88%)).

• Georgia Tech's improvement in the six-year graduation rate had the greatest impact on the Graduation/Retention

metric. Georgia Tech's graduation rate increased from 82% in 2016 to 90% in 2021 – an increase of 8%. The

average trend for National Universities is an increase of 2.6% over the same time period.

Schools with the highest graduation rates are also the colleges with the most selective standards. These colleges only

accept exceptional, high-performing students, as a result, more of these students graduate. Graduation rates tend to be a

direct measure of the inputs (high school GPA, SAT/ACT, socioeconomic status) into a college. With both a selectivity

measure (7%) and graduation rate metrics (30%), the type of students a college selects for admission can play a large

part in an individual college’s ranking.

Georgia Tech’s Strategic Plan has a strategic focus area of expanding access. In meeting this goal, Georgia Tech is

removing all barriers for financially vulnerable students and those traditionally underrepresented at Georgia Tech. This

particular strategic focus area will expand access to populations that are traditionally harder to retain and may have some

impact on the graduation measure for Georgia Tech.

Georgia Tech meets the needs of traditionally underrepresented students by offering services such as strong advising,

coaching, tutoring, and mentoring to ensure successful outcomes. Georgia Tech has these resources in place and may

need to ensure that these resources continue to be optimized.

First-year Retention Rate

A four-year rolling average of the proportion of first-year entering students (fall 2016-fall 2019) who returned the following

fall (4.4%). The data source used in IPEDS.

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• Georgia Tech's retention rate has been at 97% for the past five years. Georgia Tech has a high retention rate

which is indicative of a selective admissions process.

• Only six universities in the top 50 rankings have a higher first-year retention rate than Georgia Tech. Georgia

Tech's retention rate of 97% was higher than 17 of the institutions ranked above it.

Graduation Rate Performance

Graduation rate performance is measured by calculating a predicted graduation rate for each institution. The predicted

rates were modeled from factors including admissions data, the proportion of undergraduates who were awarded Pell

Grants, school financial resources, the proportion of federal financial aid recipients who are first-generation college

students, and National Universities' math and science orientations. Each school's actual graduation rate was calculated by

dividing its predicted rate by a two-year average of the quotients in the rankings.

• Georgia Tech does very well in those areas that increase the predicted graduation rate (STEM, class standing,

standardized test scores), but poorly in the factors that discount the predicted graduation rate (first-generation,

Pell Grant recipients). In particular, Georgia Tech has among the lowest proportions of first-generation and Pell

Grant recipients among national universities.

• Georgia Tech’s six-year graduation rate of 90% is higher than the USNWR national average of 72%.

Note: Improving six-year graduation rates will continue to have a significant impact on USNWR ranking since the

weighting for this measure is high.

Social Mobility (5%)

i. Pell Grant Graduation Rate (2.5%)

ii. Pell Grant Graduation Performance (2.5%)

The Social Mobility ranking looks at two factors: the graduation rates of Pell Grant recipients and the other compares Pell-

recipient graduation rates to those of all students. Both of those figures are adjusted for the share of students who are

Pell recipients.

Pell Grant graduation rates incorporate six-year graduation rates of Pell Grant students, adjusted to give more credit to

schools with larger Pell student proportions. This is computed as a two-year rolling average.

Pell Grant graduation rate performance compares each school's six-year graduation rate among Pell recipients with its

six-year graduation rate among non-Pell recipients by dividing the former into the latter, then adjusting to give more credit

to schools with larger Pell student proportions. The higher a school's Pell graduation rate relative to its non-Pell graduation

rate up to the rates being equal, the better it scores. This, too, is computed as a two-year rolling average.

If two colleges have the same Pell graduation rates, but one has a larger number of Pell recipients, the second college

would earn more points in the formula. Georgia Tech has a very low percentage of Pell Grant recipients (14%), which

accounts for the Social Mobility ranking of 259 in this category.

• Most of the top-ranked institutions are ranked low in the Social Mobility category; however, many top institutions

have a higher ranking in Social Mobility than Georgia Tech (327). (Princeton (192), Harvard (211), Columbia

(192), MIT (179), Stanford (249), John Hopkins (297), Brown (169), and Rice (265)).

• Georgia Tech’s Pell graduation rate reported to IPEDS was 86% in 2020 compared to the overall institution

graduation rate of 90%. Although Georgia Tech has a high graduation rate for Pell students, institutions with much

lower retention rates score higher in this metric due to adjustments made for larger Pell populations.

• The Chronicle of Higher Education (August 2021) listed Georgia Tech as 12

in colleges with the best graduation

rates for Pell students in the public 4-year institution category. This is in stark contrast to the 259

place ranking

on Social Mobility in the U.S. News ranking.

Note: The Social Mobility metric has minimal impact on the overall ranking for Georgia Tech based on the weighting and

adjustments to the formula for colleges with larger Pell grant recipients. Changes made by Georgia Tech will have little to

no impact on this particular measure.

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Peer Assessment (20%)

The peer assessment is a subjective metric in which institution presidents, provosts, and deans of admissions rate the

academic quality of peer institutions with which they are familiar on a scale of 1 to 5. A two-year weighted average of the

ratings is used for the ranking.

Critics of USNWR say the peer assessment component asks college officials to rate the relative merits of other schools

about which they know very little. Malcolm Gladwell stated that the reputational measure is simply a collection of

“prejudices” that turn the U.S. News rankings into a “self-fulfilling prophecy.” Overall, Georgia Tech’s peer assessment is

4.3 on a scale of 1 to 5. This score indicates that Georgia Tech’s reputation is strong amongst our peers.

• Georgia Tech’s score of 4.3 is higher than fourteen (14) of the Universities ranked above it indicating Georgia

Tech’s excellent reputation.

• If Georgia Tech was ranked on peer assessment (i.e. reputation) alone, we would have tied in the rankings at 19

overall and 4

among public institutions.

Note: The peer assessment has a high impact on the USNWR ranking for Georgia Tech.

Faculty Resources (20%)

i. Class size (8%)

ii. Percent faculty with a terminal degree in their field (3%)

iii. Faculty compensation (7%)

iv. Percent faculty that is full time (1%)

v. Student-Faculty ratio (1%)

Georgia Tech’s faculty resource rank has increased over time jumping from 116 in 2016 to its highest rating of 42 in 2020

and 84 in the 2021 rankings and down to 176 in 2022.

Class size.

At eight percent (8%), class size is the most heavily weighted Faculty Resource measure. Schools score better with

greater proportions of smaller classes for fall 2020. For fall 2020 schools were instructed to include classes designed for

in-person instruction, even if they were temporarily taught online because of the coronavirus. To minimize the influence of

an irregular year due to the pandemic, schools' scores on the fall 2020 data were averaged against their scores from the

fall 2019 data.

• Class size played a significant factor in the change of rank within the faculty resources category. Only one

institution in the top 50 national universities, the University of California-Davis had a lower percentage of classes

under 20 students (32%). Georgia Tech has approximately 33% of class offerings that are under 20 students.

(Table 2).

• Georgia Tech’s class size of 50 or over was 28%. Of the top 50 universities, only the University of California-

Davis (31%) had a higher percentage. (Table 2).

Figure 2

Georgia Tech AY2021 Class Size

Page 8 of 19

Table 2 Top 40 Ranked Institutions

Institution

% 20

students

or less

% 50

students or

above

Columbia University 83% 9%

University of Chicago 79% 6%

University of Rochester 79% 8%

Princeton University 78% 9%

Northwestern University 78% 6%

Yale University 77% 8%

Harvard University 76% 10%

Duke University 75% 7%

Johns Hopkins University 74% 9%

Massachusetts Institute of Technology 70% 11%

University of Pennsylvania 70% 9%

Brown University 70% 11%

Stanford University 69% 12%

Rice University 69% 7%

California Institute of Technology 67% 9%

Washington University in St. Louis 67% 8%

Carnegie Mellon University 67% 12%

Tufts University 66% 7%

Boston College 65% 1%

Dartmouth College 63% 6%

Cornell University 63% 14%

University of Southern California 63% 12%

New York University 63% 9%

Case Western Reserve University 63% 13%

Georgetown University 60% 6%

University of Notre Dame 59% 11%

Vanderbilt University 57% 13%

Emory University 57% 13%

University of Michigan--Ann Arbor 57% 17%

Tulane University 57% 8%

Boston University 56% 15%

University of California--Berkeley 55% 21%

Brandeis University 55% 10%

University of California--Santa Barbara 54% 20%

University of Florida 53% 9%

University of Virginia 52% 14%

University of California--Irvine 51% 23%

Wake Forest University 50% 1%

William & Mary 49% 8%

University of California--Los Angeles 48% 23%

University of Texas at Austin 48% 14%

University of Wisconsin--Madison 47% 24%

University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill 46% 12%

University of California--San Diego 46% 24%

Georgia Institute of Technology 33% 28%

University of California--Davis 32% 31%

Institutions by Percentage of Class Sizes

Page 9 of 19

• The percent faculty with a terminal degree in their field was an area that Georgia Tech had difficulty providing.

Initial extraction of data from the system of record (Peoplesoft) had many tenure and tenure-track faculty missing

degree information. In many cases, faculty members had only bachelor’s degrees listed in the system of record.

Faculty data should be reviewed by data owners and stewards of the data to ensure that data on terminal degree,

rank, and tenure status is complete and accurate in the system of record.

• Georgia Tech fares well in the faculty compensation metric, due to changes in the metrics that take into account

faculty salary and price parity adjustments based on the cost of living.

• Georgia Tech has a high percentage of faculty members who are full-time with a solid rank in this component of

faculty resource rank.

• Georgia Tech’s student to faculty ratio (19:1) is higher than all but one institution in the top 50 national university

ranking. Only the University of California – Davis had a higher ratio at 20:1.

Note: The faculty resource metric is another area that Georgia Tech could significantly improve to increase USNWR rank

by controlling for class size (8% weighting) and by keeping faculty data current within data systems.

Student Selectivity Rank (7%)

SAT and Composite ACT scores (5%)

High school class standing in top 10% (2%)

Georgia Tech is ranked 20

in student excellence due to the high SAT and Composite ACT scores for entering freshmen.

In addition to high standardized test scores, Georgia Tech has 90% of entering students in the top 10% of their high

school class. Georgia Tech performs well in this category; however, with changes to test-optional admissions nationwide,

this category may change over time.

Financial Resources per student (10%)

The financial resources per student uses the average spending per student on instruction, research, student services and

related educational expenditures in the 2020 and 2021 fiscal years.

• Georgia Tech is ranked 59

in the Financial Resources per Student category. Only three of the top 40 national

universities have a lower financial resources ranking than Georgia Tech (UC Irvine (64), UT Austin (70), and

William & Mary (109)).

To provide better context to financial data including Georgia Tech’s expenditures in these areas, data from the 2020

IPEDS Finance Survey is used to compare expenditures with top-ranked institutions for instructional expenses per FTE

and student service expenses per FTE.

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Figure 3 & 4

Source: IPEDS Finance Survey 2019

• Georgia Tech has the lowest instructional expenses per FTE and lowest academic support expenses of all its

peer institutions. Georgia's low cost of living and non-union workforce are factors that lower Georgia Tech's

overall instructional expenses and academic support expenses per FTE student. Although Georgia Tech is not

the lowest in student service expenses per FTE student, it is at the bottom third in expenses for its peer group.

Georgia Tech has a disadvantage in this particular metric due to the lower price parities in the Southeastern

United States compared to higher-cost areas like the Northeastern United States and California.

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Figures 5 & 6

Source: IPEDS Finance

• Georgia Tech does relatively well in research expenditures per FTE student ranking near the top of the 50

highest ranked colleges in the U.S. News Best Colleges rankings.

• Similar to instructional expenses per FTE and student service expenses per FTE - the academic support

expenses per FTE are near the bottom for the top-ranked universities.

Although USNWR adjusts faculty salaries for regional price parities, it does not adjust the financial resources per student

metric. Regional price parities measure the differences in price levels across states and metropolitan areas for a given

year and are expressed as a percentage of the overall national price level.

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Figure 7. Regional Price Parities

• 34 of the top 50 ranked colleges are in high-cost areas such as California, New York, Massachusetts, and New

Jersey) and states with higher price parities than Georgia. U.S. News does not adjust for these differences when

calculating the financial resources per student.

• The rankings incentivize higher costs particularly since the formula used in calculating the rankings rewards

schools that spend more money and operate in high-cost states. The amount of money spent per student does

not necessarily equate to quality or value but could be more of a reflection of the regional price parities within

geographic regions.

Note: Based on the elements used within the Financial Resources per Student measurement, there is little that Georgia

Tech can do to increase ranking in this metric.

Average Alumni Giving Rate (3%)

The Alumni Giving Rate rank for Georgia Tech is 59

place with the alumni giving rate at 17%. The range of alumni

giving for the top 50 nationally ranked universities ranges from a high of 55% at Princeton University to a low of 4% at the

University of California-San Diego.

NOTE: The Alumni Giving Rate has minimal on Georgia Tech’s overall ranking score.

Graduate Indebtedness (5%)

*In the 2022 edition, scores from the 2021 and 2020 rankings were averaged to mitigate year-to-year volatility

1. Graduate indebtedness total* (3%)

The graduate indebtedness total ranking factor assesses each school's average accumulated federal loan debt

among its 2019 and 2020 bachelor's degree graduating classes by comparing it to the median debt amount

among ranked schools.

2. Graduate indebtedness proportion with debt* (2%)

Graduate indebtedness proportion is the percentage of graduates from the 2019 and 2020 bachelor's degree

graduating classes who borrowed federal loans. This ranking factor credits schools for meeting the full financial

need without loans of their undergraduates (who would not be included in the graduate indebtedness total cohort)

by comparing the proportions who borrowed to the median proportion among ranked schools.

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Approximately 40% of Georgia Tech’s students obtain student loans during their undergraduate careers. The average

indebtedness for Georgia Tech students after graduating with a bachelor’s degree is $31,545. Harvard ($6,170),

Princeton ($9,445), and Yale ($15,379) have the lowest amount of indebtedness of the top-ranked universities.

Table 3. Student Indebtedness by Institution

Rank

University % Loans

2020 Avg

Indebtedness

Princeton University (NJ)

17% $9,445

Columbia University

N/A Not reported

Harvard University (MA)

7% $6,170

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

29% $22,696

Yale University (CT)

15% $15,379

Stanford University (CA)

17% $22,897

University of Chicago

29% $26,619

University of Pennsylvania

22% $23,009

California Institute of Technology

30% $20,192

Duke University (NC)

33% $22,203

Northwestern University (IL)

34% $36,350

Johns Hopkins University (MD)

46% $25,697

Dartmouth College (NH)

40% $25,071

Brown University (RI)

31% $24,304

Vanderbilt University (TN)

22% $22,727

Washington University in St. Louis

27% $22,555

Rice University (TX)

25% $24,292

Cornell University (NY)

40% $27,094

University of Notre Dame (IN)

40% $27,460

University of California--Los Angeles

42% $22,390

Emory University (GA)

35% $24,889

University of California--Berkeley

32% $19,773

Georgetown University (DC)

36% $26,759

University of Michigan--Ann Arbor

38%

$25,777

Carnegie Mellon University (PA)

52%

$31,342

University of Virginia

33%

$26,023

University of Southern California

52%

$30,449

New York University

39%

$29,242

Tufts University (MA)

30%

$27,006

University of California--Santa Barbara

51% $18,995

Wake Forest University (NC)

30%

$34,053

U. of North Carolina--Chapel Hill

37%

$21,203

University of Florida

35%

$20,388

University of California – San Diego

41%

$20,536

University of Rochester (NY)

51%

$28,503

Boston College

47%

$23,136

University of California – Irvine

50%

$19,597

Georgia Institute of Technology

40%

$31,545

Source: Collegetransitions.com Dataverse

Page 14 of 19

Despite many in-state students receiving HOPE or Zell scholarships for state financial aid, Georgia students take out

loans at amounts similar to or higher than some out-of-state students. For the 2020-21 graduating class, approximately

2,492 Georgia students obtained student loans with an average indebtedness of $25,721 (Table 4).

The second-largest group of students with student loan debt were resident alien students who did not indicate a state of

residency but borrowed an average of $39,534.

Table 4. Georgia Tech Indebtedness of 2020-21

Bachelor’s Degree Graduates by Top States of Residency

State

Residency

Graduates

Avg

Indebtedness

2,492

25,721.56

Res Alien

365

39,534.03

146

34,878.64

39,582.98

34,782.65

31,102.41

32,516.64

28,800.62

24,073.80

22,800.00

25,958.32

36,702.17

28,138.88

37,872.29

43,060.86

30,032.56

14,170.00

CONCLUSION

Rankings have significant effects on the decisions of prospective students to apply for admission, alumni giving, and

institutional priorities. Although Georgia Tech tends to rank consistently in the top 50 schools each year, Georgia Tech

stakeholders must use caution when conceptualizing the rankings as a sign of institutional quality. The rankings tend to

reward elite, high-cost institutions that are selective and cater towards students in the top one percent of income

distribution. The formulas used don’t capture what is valuable and distinctive about Georgia Tech and the students it

serves. The depth of intellectual engagement both in and out of the classroom, student interactions, and the dedication of

faculty and staff in serving students is something that cannot be measured by a college rankings system.

Although the USNWR rankings provide a means with which colleges can compare and rank themselves, caution should

be used in interpreting changes in rank to changes in quality at the institution. The process of the rankings measurement

itself provides a distorted representation of an institution’s quality by amplifying insignificant differences between schools.

Fluctuation in the ranks of schools occurs due to continuous adjustments to the metrics that create small and statistically

insignificant changes in an institution’s score. Schools are so similar in the scores calculated by USNWR, that very small

changes in scores can have disproportionate effects on an institution’s rank.

Page 15 of 19

Appendices

2022 RANKING FACTORS

NATIONAL INDICATOR WEIGHT

GRADUATION AND RETENTION RATES 22%

AVERAGE SIX-YEAR GRADUATION RATE 17.6%

AVERAGE FIRST-YEAR STUDENT RETENTION RATE 4.4%

SOCIAL MOBILITY 5%

PELL GRANT GRADUATION RATES 2.5%

PELL GRANT GRADUATION RATE PERFORMANCE 2.5%

GRADUATION RATE PERFORMANCE 8%

UNDERGRADUATE ACADEMIC REPUTATION 20%

PEER ASSESSMENT SURVEY 20%

FACULTY RESOURCES FOR 2019-2020 ACADEMIC YEAR 20%

CLASS SIZE INDEX 8%

FACULTY COMPENSATION 7%

PERCENT FACULTY WITH TERMINAL DEGREE IN THEIR FIELD 3%

PERCENT FACULTY THAT IS FULL TIME 1%

STUDENT-FACULTY RATIO 1%

STUDENT SELECTIVITY FOR THE FALL 2019 ENTERING CLASS 7%

MATH AND EVIDENCE-BASED READING AND WRITING PORTIONS OF

THE SAT AND THE COMPOSITE ACT SCORES

HIGH SCHOOL CLASS STANDING IN TOP 10% 2%

HIGH SCHOOL CLASS STANDING IN TOP 25% 0%

ACCEPTANCE RATE 0%

FINANCIAL RESOURCES PER STUDENT 10%

AVERAGE ALUMNI GIVING RATE 3%

GRADUATE INDEBTEDNESS 5%

GRADUATE INDEBTEDNESS TOTAL 3%

GRADUATE INDEBTEDNESS PROPORTION WITH DEBT 2%

TOTAL 100%

Page 16 of 19

Institution Name

2020

Retention

Rate

2020

Graduation

rate, total

cohort

2020

Pell Grant

recipients

graduation

rate

Princeton University 83 98 98

Harvard University 76 98 97

Stanford University 86 95 95

Yale University 65 96 94

University of Chicago 100 96 94

University of Notre Dame 97 97 94

Massachusetts Institute of Technology 98 96 94

Columbia University in the City of New York 95 96 94

Cornell University 96 95 94

Duke University 97 96 94

Georgetown University 94 94 93

Northwestern University 97 95 93

Johns Hopkins University 97 94 93

Tufts University 92 94 93

California Institute of Technology 94 92 92

Washington University in St Louis 94 94 92

University of Pennsylvania 95 96 92

Brown University 92 95 92

University of Southern California 91 92 91

Boston College 93 92 91

Dartmouth College 96 95 91

Brandeis University 90 89 90

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 95 91 90

Carnegie Mellon University 96 93 90

Vanderbilt University 96 93 90

Rice University 97 94 90

University of Virginia-Main Campus 97 94 90

University of California-Berkeley 96 92 89

Boston University 92 89 89

University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 96 93 89

University of California-Los Angeles 96 91 88

William & Mary 93 91 88

Emory University 93 90 87

Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus 97 91 86

New York University 90 88 86

University of Florida 97 89 85

University of California-San Diego 94 87 84

University of Rochester 92 86 84

University of California-Davis 93 86 83

University of California-Irvine 94 85 83

Rutgers University-New Brunswick 93 84 83

Case Western Reserve University 93 85 83

University of Wisconsin-Madison 95 88 83

Wake Forest University 95 89 82

University of California-Santa Barbara 91 84 81

The University of Texas at Austin 97 88 81

Tulane University of Louisiana 92 86 78

University of Minnesota-Twin Cities 93 84 78

Texas A & M University-College Station 94 83 73

Michigan State University 91 81 70

Page 17 of 19

Tuition, Fees, and Average Net Price per income level

Institution Name

2020

Instruction

expenses

per FTE

2020

Research

expenses

per FTE

2020

Academic

support

expenses

per FTE

2020

Student

service

expenses

per FTE

Washington University in St Louis 139,766 34,660 13,802 6,074

Stanford University 114,640 50,120 10,704 13,401

California Institute of Technology 105,239 130,514 22,031 11,564

Columbia University in the City of New York 102,187 24,932 3,514 6,052

University of Chicago 86,008 23,716 7,023 6,745

Johns Hopkins University 84,825 121,078 1,902 5,177

Massachusetts Institute of Technology 81,726 145,908 36,652 8,360

Duke University 70,393 57,975 13,327 4,756

Princeton University 62,979 47,395 22,363 17,056

Yale University 59,736 36,175 97,042 23,215

University of California-Los Angeles 57,962 20,559 21,322 4,496

University of Pennsylvania 57,279 33,385 39,842 4,467

University of Southern California 56,494 9,127 1,729 5,341

Emory University 45,722 38,719 10,870 6,474

Harvard University 45,396 40,365 32,987 7,100

Rice University 43,201 19,161 5,056 11,002

Northwestern University 39,868 28,173 18,519 12,450

Brown University 35,486 15,386 18,905 7,254

Carnegie Mellon University 34,441 17,678 11,632 4,685

New York University 34,174 23,022 1,658 2,503

Case Western Reserve University 32,736 35,211 2,088 3,224

Boston University 32,434 7,171 4,010 2,650

Georgetown University 31,957 14,302 11,244 7,770

Vanderbilt University 31,711 16,656 12,337 9,956

Cornell University 31,051 15,991 12,159 8,307

University of Notre Dame 30,820 10,359 9,240 4,162

University of Rochester 30,380 26,796 6,179 6,247

Wake Forest University 30,251 22,522 108,394 4,512

Tulane University of Louisiana 28,832 12,828 14,508 6,708

Dartmouth College 28,084 20,690 33,946 12,735

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 27,996 22,823 5,969 1,613

University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 25,086 19,284 9,486 2,620

University of California-Davis 24,939 17,337 8,639 4,399

Tufts University 24,748 14,160 16,917 2,839

Lehigh University 23,641 6,621 5,685 5,858

University of California-San Diego 22,312 23,028 20,680 3,779

University of California-Irvine 21,724 9,140 8,033 2,277

University of California-Berkeley 21,700 15,669 4,479 6,237

University of Virginia-Main Campus 19,706 19,604 8,959 2,482

The University of Texas at Austin 19,349 14,509 10,189 1,237

Northeastern University 19,043 7,319 8,572 6,119

Brandeis University 18,616 7,086 7,450 5,137

Texas A & M University-College Station 17,485 16,008 6,052 1,784

Michigan State University 17,219 9,759 3,805 1,400

William & Mary 17,034 7,712 6,026 2,245

University of Wisconsin-Madison 17,029 26,550 6,222 3,630

University of Florida 16,571 15,695 4,939 971

Indiana University-Bloomington 16,549 3,363 5,250 1,647

Rutgers University-New Brunswick 16,407 12,278 8,519 2,105

University of Minnesota-Twin Cities 16,272 18,201 10,122 2,816

University of California-Santa Barbara 14,927 8,198 3,333 4,199

University of Iowa 14,478 14,085 6,459 1,734

Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus 12,188 32,190 2,741 1,428

Expenses per FTE Student

Page 18 of 19