UCR among top U.S. universities serving low-income students

UC Riverside is the No. 16 university in the country for its Pell Grant student performance, according to Washington Monthly's newly released 2024 National University rankings.

The accolade notes UCR's Pell performance in several categories including that it is among the top 20 universities for the number of Pell Grant recipients it graduates, with 2,419, according to the federal data on which Washington Monthly's list relies.

The Pell Grant is the largest federal grant program offered to undergraduates and is typically awarded to students from households earning less than $65,000 per year.

UCR placed No. 79 overall among 438 national four-year universities ranked by Washington Monthly this year. It is the No. 45 public university, and ranked No. 42 in "Best Bang for the Buck" in the ranking's West region, a measure of affordability and return on investment.

Washington Monthly prides itself on an alternative rankings methodology to industry leader U.S. News & World Report. It translates to a nuanced methodology that affords equal weight to measures such as social mobility and community and national service as it does to a more traditional college rankings measure - research.

Moving forward, UCR should see rankings benefits from the service focus, as the university this year received a coveted community engagement designation from the Carnegie Foundation. That designation was not factored into the 2024 Washington Monthly rankings.

"UCR's high placement among national universities on the Pell performance measure is a reflection of those students' strong graduation rates and the large number of Pell Grant students we serve," said Scott Heil, UCR's assistant vice chancellor for institutional research. "We stand out among institutions that have significant Pell student populations for having a small gap between Pell and non-Pell students and a high level of student success overall."

As with most college rankings, Washington Monthly's data is largely a curation of information from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, or IPEDS, from the National Center for Education Statistics. IPEDS is the product of an annual survey from every college, university, and technical or vocational institution. Institutions that received federal financial aid are compelled to participate.

In other Washington Monthly results, UCR was ranked No. 59 for research. Among the data considered for the research score were faculty accolades - awards and National Academy memberships in relation to number of faculty. For faculty accolades, UCR was ranked No. 45 in the nation. The research score also factored research spending - UCR spent $191 on research in Washington Monthly's most recent data set - and Ph.D. degrees awarded, with special consideration for STEM fields.

UCR ranked No. 60 for social mobility, a measure of a university's success elevating students to a higher income threshold. Washington Monthly's social mobility ranking is its most complex, factoring broad criteria including graduation rates, student loan debt, admission rates, demographic makeup of the student body, Pell Grant data, outcomes, and affordability.

UCR has consistently placed atop the U.S. News & World Report's social mobility ranking since it was unveiled six years ago. This past year, UCR was No. 2 for social mobility among American universities. The 2024 U.S. News rankings will be released Sept. 24.

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