The University of St. Thomas ranks 115th out of 280 schools in the national rankings of U.S. News and World Report’s annual list of “Best Colleges” released earlier this week.
St. Thomas dropped two spots from last year’s 113th rank and is now in a six-way tie with Clarkson University, Duquesne University, Temple University, University of Kansas and the University of Utah.
The only other Minnesota university ahead of St. Thomas was the University of Minnesota, which was slotted as the 69th best college on the national list.
The engineering school at the university is 46th on the list of best engineering programs. The undergraduate program at the Opus College of Business ranked 156th out of more than 400 programs on the list.
The Health Care Management and Social Work programs at the university were ranked 57th and 52nd, respectively.
Additionally, St. Thomas ranked 94th for best colleges for veterans; 113th in its part-time MBA program and 135th for the law school.
In separate national liberal arts rankings, Carleton was No. 8 and Macalester No. 23.
This ranking of St. Thomas is disappointing, especially in that it moved down rather than up. However, the ranking of St. Thomas as a Catholic school among other Catholic schools is the more important one, and as far as Cardinal Newman Society’s ranking as recommended Catholic schools, St. Thomas did not make it’s list. Of course their standards are high as they should be, but for some reason St. Thomas does not meet those standards. It should be critical to know why not.