U.S. News Ranks the Black Colleges

Despite widespread criticism of its college and university rankings, U.S. News & World Report has learned that issues of its magazine that contain these rankings are big sellers. Therefore it has expanded the number of rankings that it publishes. Now in addition to ranking colleges, graduate programs, and hospitals, for the first time the magazine is publishing its ratings of the best historically black colleges and universities.

It comes as no surprise that Spelman College in Atlanta was rated the top black college. Spelman is the highly regarded college for black women with a stellar academic reputation, superior graduation rate, and highly selective admissions. Howard University in Washington came in second place in the rankings followed by Hampton University, Morehouse College, and Fisk University. Also in the top 10 black colleges are Tuskegee University, Claflin University, Xavier University, Dillard University, and Johnson C. Smith University.

In eleventh place overall, Tennessee State University was the highest-ranking state-operated black college.

Copyright © 2007. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. All rights reserved.