Bellarmine University has moved up one spot on U.S. News & World Report’s annual list of the south’s best universities, and also earned recognition as an outstanding college for veterans.
Their
2017 “Best Colleges” publication ranks Bellarmine 12th among 105 regional universities in the south. This is Bellarmine's 23rd consecutive year on the U.S. News list.
In a separate U.S. News category ranking colleges based on the support they offer veterans and active-duty service members who are pursuing degrees, Bellarmine ranked eighth among the best southern regional universities for veterans. Bellarmine, which was 11th on that list last year, is the only Louisville-area university — and one of only four in Kentucky — to appear on this year’s veteran list in any category.
U.S. News develops their annual Best College rankings based on overall excellence, graduation and retention rates, peer assessment, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources and alumni giving. The publication classifies regional universities as those that provide a full range of undergraduate and master’s degrees, often with some doctoral programs.
The report notes that 59 percent of Bellarmine freshmen were in the top 25 percent of their high school class at graduation, and that Bellarmine’s 12:1 student-faculty ratio means that less than one percent of the university’s classes have more than 50 students.
Bellarmine also had the fifth-highest alumni giving percentage among the top 20 southern regional universities.
Last month, The Princeton Review
named Bellarmine one of the nation’s top 381 colleges.