NJIT Jumps into Top 100 for 2020 U.S. News College Rankings

New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) has continued its impressive climb up the annual U.S. News and World Report ranking of colleges and universities by joining the top 100 National Universities for 2020. Now ranked #97 in the nation, NJIT has risen nearly 50 places during the last two years. NJIT also is ranked #41 overall on the publication’s “Best Value Schools” list and #43 overall among “Top Public Schools.” Additionally, NJIT is ranked within the top 100 undergraduate engineering programs in the nation.

“What’s most notable about NJIT’s rapid climb in the U.S. News ranking is that it is directly attributable to measures of student success,” noted Fadi P. Deek, NJIT’s provost and senior executive vice president. “The primary drivers of our ranking gains have been graduation and retention rates, resource allocations that support students and faculty, and NJIT’s success in attracting high-achieving students. These empirical measures show that NJIT is putting student success at the forefront of all that it does.”

Each year, U.S. News ranks colleges and universities throughout the country based upon “outcomes, faculty resources, expert opinion, financial resources, student excellence, and alumni giving.” For a full description of U.S. News’ methodology, visit https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/rankings-methodologies.

Within the outcomes measures, NJIT has seen noteworthy rises in both retention and graduation rates in recent years and has performed as a national leader with regard to the social/economic mobility of its students, such as the persistence and success of students from low-income families. NJIT is proud to be #1 nationally, according to Forbes, for the percentage of those students who rise from the lowest quintile of family income to the highest quintiles of income 10-years after graduation.

In terms of faculty resources, NJIT has hired 150 new faculty members in recent years and has dramatically enhanced its research enterprise. NJIT now conducts $170 million in annual research activity and is rated an R1 research university by the Carnegie Classification, which is the highest possible ranking. NJIT also has increased the percentage of classes with 20 or less students and has reduced the percentage of classes with more than 49 students.

With regard to “student excellence,” NJIT has seen applications for admission jump from 4,300 in 2013 to more than 9,000 this year, and the accomplishments of those applying also have grown. The credentials of NJIT’s nearly 1,400 first-year students this fall rival those of students at the most prestigious universities in the nation. NJIT’s current first-year students have an average high school grade point average (GPA) of 3.6 out of 4.0 and achieved average SAT scores of 1,297 out of a possible 1,600. For the 154 students entering NJIT’s Albert Dorman Honors College, the average high school GPA is 3.95 and the average SAT reaches 1486.

NJIT additionally has realized improvement in its “expert opinion” score and in its financial resources ranking during the last two years.

“Joining the top 100 National Universities represents an important milestone for NJIT,” said NJIT President Joel S. Bloom. “It’s not a matter of perception. It’s where we belong based on the investments we have made in the success of our students and faculty. I’m particularly gratified because this recognition is the direct result of efforts that have yielded tangible and important results. NJIT’s rise in these rankings is about substance, and U.S. News is just one of the places taking note of what is happening here. We now are rated R1 for research by the Carnegie Classification; we are ranked #1 in the nation by Forbes for the upward economic mobility of our students from the lowest brackets of family income; and Payscale.com ranks NJIT #43 out of more than 4,000 universities for the mid-career earnings of our graduates.”