The U.S. News & World Report released the 2024 edition of its Best Colleges rankings. U.S. News changed their methodology, causing the Panthers to climb in certain categories and plummet in others.

In May 2023, U.S. News announced the updates for this new rating system. Two factors, alumni contributions and high school data, were removed from the methodology. Instead, these factors will be available as comparison resources for students as they research different school profiles.

According to Chapman President Daniele Struppa’s President’s Report PowerPoint presentation, the factors of class size and faculty members possessing terminal degrees dropped from 20% to 11% in weight, while the selectivity factor was discarded altogether.

The new ranking system also emphasizes the weight of schools successfully graduating students from diverse backgrounds. 

Learn more about how U.S. News calculated the 2024 colleges rankings here.

Here are the new Chapman rankings:

#133 in National Universities

#151 in Best Value Schools

#126 in Economics

#87 in Best Colleges for Veterans

#48 in Best Undergraduate Teaching

#58 in Most Innovative Schools

#305 in Top Performers of Social Mobility

The university’s standings have fluctuated since last year. For instance, Chapman dropped in the National Universities category from #121, yet rose in the Best Undergraduate Teaching category from #66.

Struppa states the new metrics favor public institutions over private institutions. In his President’s report, it details, “the average change for private institutions was -16 while the average change for public institutions was +8.”

The report goes on to state, “the average change for private R2 institutions was -14 while the average change for public R2 institutions was +12.” R2 schools are doctoral universities with high research activity.

Struppa notes that the social mobility category includes the percentage of students who are eligible for the Pell Grant. 

“I think the number of Pell-eligible students and the number of first-generation students had an impact on us because we are not very low, but we are about 20%,” Struppa said. “And you know, many public schools are way, way higher than that. I suspect most private schools are in our same situation.”

Struppa has plans to grow the number of first-generation and Pell Grant-eligible students on campus.

“The most important thing that we're gonna implement is to grow our endowment so that they will give us money to provide scholarships and that will help us grow the number of Pell-eligible and first-generation students,” Struppa said. “So, part of the reason why those numbers are not very high is the price point, and we are an expensive institution. It is harder for people without financial support to come in, even though we support — about 80% of our students have some form of scholarship.”

Struppa said he has asked donors and trustees to grow Chapman’s endowment to provide more scholarships for students. One way the endowment grows is through fundraising.

At the end of the school year, whatever funding was unused goes into the endowment, a fund for scholarships primarily and also building projects. This is different from public schools as they have to spend all their money every year.

“Sometimes people say, ‘Why do we build the endowment? Why don't we spend the money?’ Well, this is why,” Struppa said. “And actually, I decided to do this before the new U.S. News, but now I think that the new way of ranking shows that this is the right direction to go, so I'm actually quite pleased.”

Struppa recalls the endowment being about $300 million when he became Chapman’s president eight years ago. Since then, the endowment has more than doubled. His goal is to bring the endowment to $2 billion within several years.

Struppa compared the endowment fund to a retirement account, only spending the interest generated from the endowment every year. 

“If we, at that time, are able to bring up back the expenditures to 4.5%, that would mean $90 million a year that we can spend in scholarships,” Struppa said. 

Struppa does not believe U.S. News’ 2024 rankings reflect Chapman’s quality of education. However, he is not critical of the new methodology because he sees the nature of it to be subjective. 

“I'm a mathematician, but (Chapman) cannot be captured by a number,” Struppa said.

Included in the PowerPoint, the President's ‘Strategic Plan Alignment with New Weighted Criteria,’ includes goals to improve faculty resources, graduation and retention rates, financial outcomes, social mobility and faculty research.

“The methodology changed so much that we cannot compare ourselves to previous years,” said Marisol Samson, the director of Institutional Research and Decision Support. “It means that Chapman has a new benchmark and we can only move forward.”