Category: Class Room
Historically Black Colleges Rankings Methodology
U.S. News ranked a total of 77 historically Black colleges and universities.
THIS U.S. NEWS & WORLD Report ranking measures the quality of the undergraduate education at historically Black colleges and universities. These HBCUs were compared only with one another for this ranking.
To be on the list, a school must currently be listed as part of the U.S. Department of Education's Historically Black Colleges and Universities registry.
The Higher Education Act of 1965 defines an HBCU as "any historically Black college or university that was established prior to 1964, whose principal mission was, and is, the education of Black Americans, and that is accredited by a nationally recognized accrediting agency or association determined by the Secretary (of Education) to be a reliable authority as to the quality of training offered or is, according to such an agency or association, making reasonable progress toward accreditation."
To qualify for the U.S. News ranking, an HBCU also must be an undergraduate baccalaureate-granting institution that enrolls primarily first-year, first-time students and must be a school that is part of the 2021 Best Colleges rankings.
If an HBCU is listed as unranked in this year's overall rankings, it is also listed as unranked in the HBCU rankings; see more details below.
In total, 79 HBCUs were eligible to be included on the list; 77 of those were ranked and two were unranked. Among the 77 ranked HBCUs, schools that place in the top three-fourths display their individual ranks. The remaining ranked schools display the bottom quartile numerical ranking range and are listed alphabetically.
U.S. News used the same data in the HBCU rankings as was used in the 2021 edition of the Best Colleges rankings, except for the peer survey results that were based on a separate HBCU peer assessment survey.
The U.S. News rankings system rests on two pillars: quantitative and qualitative measures that education experts have proposed as reliable indicators of academic quality, and U.S. News' view of what matters in education.
The indicators used to capture academic quality fall into seven categories: outcome measures, graduate indebtedness, assessment by administrators at peer HBCUs, faculty resources, financial resources, student excellence and alumni giving. The indicators include input measures that reflect a school's student body, its faculty and its financial resources, along with outcome measures – such as graduation rates, first-year student retention rates, graduate indebtedness and social mobility – that signal how well the institution educates students and whether they eventually graduate.
The HBCU rankings are based on mostly the same statistical indicators, but with different weights, as were used in the 2021 Best Colleges rankings for the schools in the Regional Universities and Regional Colleges categories. The following are detailed descriptions of the statistical indicators and weights that U.S. News used to measure academic quality among the HBCUs that were ranked.
This year, there are two new graduate indebtedness indicators with a 9% total weight in the rankings. These two factors described below are also used in the overall Best Colleges rankings. There was a 1% point increase in the total weight of the two social mobility ranking indicators to 9% of the total rankings.
As a result of both these changes, outcomes indicators – a combination of graduation and retention rates, social mobility and graduate indebtedness – account for 40% (previously 30%) of the HBCU rankings, which is same as it accounts for in the overall Best Colleges rankings. In addition, the weight of the HBCU peer assessment factor was reduced to 20% of the rankings from 25% previously. This is now the same weight that the peer assessment score has in the overall rankings.
Outcomes (40%, previously 30%)
Nearly one-third of a school's rank comes from its success at retaining and graduating students within a normal time. It receives the highest weight in our rankings because degree completion is necessary to receive the full benefits of undergraduate study from employers and graduate schools. We approach graduation from diverse angles.
- Graduation and retention rates: We weighted it at 22%. This measure has two components: average six-year graduation rate (17.6% of the score) and average first-year student retention rate (4.4%). The graduation rate indicates the average proportion of a class that earns a degree in six years or less; U.S. News considers first-year classes that started from fall 2010 through fall 2013. First-year student retention indicates the average proportion of first-year students entering each fall from 2015 through 2018 who returned the following fall.
- Social mobility: We factored a school's success at promoting social mobility by graduating students who received federal Pell Grants (those typically coming from households whose family incomes are less than $50,000 annually, though most Pell Grant money goes to students with a total family income below $20,000). We weighted it at 9%. For the second year in a row, the social mobility factors were computed using two-year averages of fall 2012 and fall 2013 entering cohorts.
There are two indicators used to calculate social mobility, and each is 4.5% (previously 4% each) of a school's ranking. The first measures the success of Pell Grant students on an absolute basis. To calculate this indicator, we use a school's six-year graduation rate among new fall 2012 and 2013 entrants receiving Pell Grants. This assesses each school’s performance graduating students from low-income backgrounds. A higher Pell Grant graduation rate scores better than a lower one.
The second ranking factor compares each school's six-year graduation rate among Pell Grant recipients who were new fall 2012 and 2013 entrants graduating by 2018 and 2019 with the six-year graduation rate among non-Pell Grant recipients at the same school by dividing the former into the latter. The significant minority of schools whose Pell graduation rates are equal to or greater than non-Pell graduation rates score the highest. Schools whose Pell graduation rates are below their non-Pell graduation rates score lower on this indicator. Altogether, this metric assesses each school’s level of support for students from underserved backgrounds relative to all its other students.
Scores for both the new social mobility indicators were adjusted by the proportion of the entering class that was awarded Pell Grants because achieving a higher low-income student graduation rate is more challenging with a larger proportion of low-income students.
- Graduate indebtedness: New to the HBCU rankings are two ranking factors measuring graduate student indebtedness. The first factor is the average amount of accumulated federal loan debt among the 2019 bachelor's degree graduating class (5.5%). The second factor is the percentage of bachelor's degrees recipients from the class of 2019 who borrowed federal loans (3.5%)
Expert Opinion (20%, previously 25%)
This measure gives weight to the opinions of those in a position to judge a school's undergraduate academic excellence. The peer assessment survey allows the top HBCU academics whom U.S. News consults to account for intangibles, such as faculty dedication to teaching.
Each individual is asked to rate academic programs of peer HBCUs on a scale from 1 (marginal) to 5 (distinguished). Those who don't know enough about a school to evaluate it fairly are asked to mark "don't know."
In spring and summer 2020, U.S. News conducted an exclusive peer survey of the president, provost and admissions dean at each HBCU. Each HBCU received three surveys. U.S. News asked the recipients to rate all HBCUs they were familiar with based on undergraduate academic quality, considering each school's scholarship record, curriculum and quality of faculty and graduates.
To calculate the overall HBCU rankings, U.S. News used the two most recent years' responses instead of only the most recent year. This was done to incorporate greater representation of the views of academics at HBCUs and to decrease the year-to-year volatility of the results in the peer reputation ranking factor.
For the 2020 survey of top officials at HBCUs, 25.3% responded to the HBCU peer assessment surveys. This is compared with the 32.5% of top officials who responded to the spring 2019 HBCU peer assessment survey.
Faculty Resources (20%)
Research shows the greater access students have to quality instructors, the more engaged they will be in class and the more they will learn. Research also shows that the more satisfied students are about their contact with professors, the more they will learn and the more likely they are to graduate.
U.S. News uses five factors from the 2019-2020 academic year to assess a school's commitment to instruction.
- Class size is weighted at 8% and is based on a single index that takes fuller advantage of all the data schools report on fall 2019 class size. Schools receive the most credit in this index for their proportion of undergraduate classes with fewer than 20 students. Classes with 20 to 29 students score second highest, 30 to 39 students third highest and 40 to 49 students fourth highest. Classes that have 50 or more students receive no credit.
- Faculty salary is weighted at 7% and is the average faculty pay during the 2019-2020 academic year, adjusted for regional differences in buying power across the 50 states and the District of Columbia and metropolitan areas using the Bureau of Economic Analysis' (part of U.S. Commerce Department) regional price parities indexes. These indexes 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. The regional price parity indexes cover all consumption goods and services, including housing rents.
U.S. News also weighs the proportion of full-time faculty with the highest degree in their fields (3%), the student-faculty ratio (1%) and the proportion of faculty who are full time (1%).
Financial Resources (10%)
Generous per-student spending indicates that a college can offer a wide variety of programs and services. U.S. News measures financial resources by using the average spending per student on instruction, research, student services and related educational expenditures in the 2018 and 2019 fiscal years. Spending on sports, dorms and hospitals doesn't count; U.S. News only considers the part of a school's budget that goes toward educating students.
Student Excellence (7%, previously 10%)
A school's academic atmosphere is determined in part by the student body's abilities and ambitions.
U.S. News factors in enrollees' test scores on the mathematics and evidence-based reading and writing portions of the SAT and the composite ACT (5%, previously 7.75%) and the proportion of enrolled freshmen who graduated in the top 25% of their high school classes (2%, previously 2.25%). The data is for the fall 2019 entering class.
U.S. News believes that using both SAT and ACT test scores for all students who submitted test scores improves the methodology, since these are a much more comprehensive measure and a better way to compare the entire entering class between schools.
Alumni Giving (3%, previously 5%)
The average percentage of living alumni with bachelor's degrees who gave to their school during 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 academic years is an indirect measure of student satisfaction.
The alumni giving rate is calculated by dividing the number of alumni donors during a given academic year by the number of alumni of record for that same year. U.S. News averages and uses in the rankings the two most recent years of alumni giving rates that are available. For the 2021 Best Colleges rankings, the two separately calculated alumni giving rates that were averaged were for giving in the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 academic years.
To arrive at a school's rank, U.S. News first calculated the weighted sum of its standardized scores. The final scores were rescaled. The top school in each category was assigned a value of 100, and the other schools' weighted scores were calculated as a proportion of that top score.
Final scores for each ranked school were rounded to the nearest whole number and ranked in descending order. Schools that received the same rank are tied and are listed in alphabetical order.
Data Sources
Most of the data comes from the colleges – and U.S. News takes pains to ensure their accuracy. For quality assurance, rankings data that schools reported to U.S. News was algorithmically compared against previous years' submissions and third-party sources. Respondents were required to review, revise and verify any flagged data to submit their surveys. Afterward, the veracity of the data submitted is rigorously reviewed by U.S. News data analysts and subject to further requests for schools to confirm or revise the data. This year, U.S. News required that a top official at each school verify the accuracy of the data that was submitted.
U.S. News obtained missing data from the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics for six-year graduation rates, retention rates, SAT and ACT scores, faculty counts, faculty salaries, graduate indebtedness and student-to-teacher ratios.
Estimates, which U.S. News never publishes, may be used when schools fail to report particular data points. Missing data is reported as "N/A" in the ranking tables.
Unranked Schools
U.S. News believes that because some schools are unable to report key educational characteristics or because they have certain other characteristics, it would be unfair to try to compare them statistically with the other schools that are part of the rankings.
Therefore, U.S. News has created a group of unranked HBCUs listed alphabetically at the bottom of the HBCU rankings table.
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