Meghan Holden

mholden@jconline.com

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University's West Lafayette campus is the fourth best public college in the country, according to a new ranking by the Wall Street Journal and Times Higher Education.

The University of Michigan's Ann Arbor campus came in first on the public university list, while Stanford University reigned supreme when ranked against private and public institutions.

Overall, Purdue placed at No. 37, tying with the University of California, Berkeley. It came in second among Indiana colleges, behind the University of Notre Dame, and third in the Big Ten, following Northwestern University and the University of Michigan.

"I mean, it's pretty good company we're keeping," Purdue President Mitch Daniels said.

Purdue also ranked third among public schools in regard to resources, which was measured by instructional spending, student-faculty ratios and research output.

A superior rating system?

The ranking released late Tuesday puts a larger emphasis on student success post-graduation and the quality of education compared to traditional rankings, which tend to focus on the profiles of incoming students, the Wall Street Journal said in an article about the survey.

Forty percent of the overall score is based on student outcomes, 30 percent on the school's resources, 20 percent on the institution's engagement with students, and 10 percent on learning environment or diversity.

Daniels said the Wall Street Journal's survey improved on the methods of other rankings, some of which he said fail to measure the most important factors.

"I will say, a lot of people ... have faulted the ones, particularly (U.S. News & World Report), over time as measuring, and therefore encouraging, the wrong things, such as greater selectivity, for instance, and rewarding schools for turning students away," Daniels said.

U.S. News & World Report placed Purdue's main campus at 60th among the nation's universities in its annual Best Colleges report released earlier this month.

The report lists student selectivity as an indicator of academic quality among other factors, including graduation and first-year student retention rates; assessment by administrators at peer institutions; faculty resources; financial resources; alumni giving; graduation rate performance; and high school counselor ratings of colleges.

U.S. News sends out surveys to presidents, provosts and deans of admissions to rate peer universities, but Daniels said he didn't fill it out because he doesn't believe he nor any college president can accurately judge other institutions.

He anticipates using the Wall Street Journal as Purdue's main source of college ratings in the future.

"Obviously, I'm pleased we came out in such stellar fashion," Daniels said. "I've said for quite some time that ratings should aim at results."

Contact J&C higher education reporter Meghan Holden at mholden@jconline.com. Follow her on Twitter: @MeghanHolden.