SU ranks No. 75 in U.S. News & World Report, drops for 7th straight year
SU dropped two spots to No. 75 out of 436 colleges in the 2026 U.S. News & World Report’s Best National University Rankings, continuing a seven-year trend. The report evaluated SU programs, placing it best in Study Abroad and LLC quality. Zabdyl Koffa | Staff Photographer
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Syracuse University dropped two spots to 75th place in the 2026 U.S. News & World Report’s Best National University Rankings compared to 2025, continuing a seven-year declining trend.
The rankings, released on Monday, include 436 national universities. Also tied at 75th are Clemson University, Rutgers University-Newark, University at Buffalo-SUNY and University of California, Riverside. SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry received the 158th spot.
The report ranks specific categories and programs within SU to offer “a bigger picture of the institution’s offerings,” according to its website.
In previous years, SU earned its best rankings in the universities with learning communities and study abroad categories. In 2026, SU’s learning community rank increased by one spot, now sitting at 15th.
However, the study abroad ranking of 10, fell two places lower compared to 2025’s eighth-place ranking. SU also dropped 20 spots in the top performers on social mobility category after last year’s 10-spot decline.
Additionally, U.S. News ranked SU at 45 for best colleges for veterans, a two-place drop from last year, and received the 95th spot in best value schools, a 15-place drop from last year.
The university received an overall score of 69 out of 100 by U.S. News, a one-point drop from last year’s overall score.
U.S. News outlined the procedure for its rankings, explaining the process sorts schools into separate categories depending on size and location.
Although “Americans relish rankings” with 100 million users on the U.S News site per year, the rankings don’t accurately reflect coluniversities, The New York Times reported.
Data provided from each university and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, a comprehensive database of annual surveys conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics, is collected and scored on specific factors.
There are 17 academic quality factors including graduation rates, first-year retention rates, graduation rate performance, faculty salaries and financial resources per student, applied to the rankings.
U.S. News scores each factor individually, giving a 100 to the top performer in the category and a zero to the worst performer, according to its website. The rest are scored based on their position according to the grading scale. This process is used to “allow for fair comparisons across different measures,” its website states.
The score calculations accounts for factors holding different weights. The process is repeated for all 17 factors, adding up to a final score on the 0-100 scale. U.S. News ranks all overall scores, giving each school its position in the national list.
