Elon earns high scores for student engagement and student interactions with faculty and staff.
Elon University is ranked #16 in the nation among private universities for student engagement, with an overall private university ranking of #112 in the 2021 Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings.
This is the fifth year that the Wall Street Journal and London-based Times Higher Education have collaborated on U.S. college rankings that are described as an answer “to questions that matter the most to students and their families: How likely am I to graduate, pay off my loans and get a good job? Does the college have plenty of resources to teach me properly? Will I be engaged and stretched in the classroom and get good access to my teachers? Is there a diverse campus community?”
The study is based on 15 performance indicators combining to create an overall score that reflects the broad strength of the institution. The data are related to academic resources, graduation rate, student-faculty ratio, academic reputation, faculty publishing, alumni salaries and other factors. Almost 20 percent of the ranking relies on a student survey dataset, which measures the opinions of over 170,000 U.S. students across all ranked colleges. Students were asked how their colleges support critical thinking, whether faculty members helped them apply their learning to the real world, and whether they felt encouraged to explore new ways of thinking and challenge their assumptions or values.
Elon’s strongest scores in the rankings factors relate to student engagement in their studies. Elon students responding to a survey gave high marks to the ways that their studies promote critical thinking and applying their knowledge in real-world situations. They also rate Elon high for challenging academics and close collaboration with their professors and peers.
Elon also earned high scores for its graduation rate and its spending on academic programs and student support services. Including almost 800 public and private colleges and universities in the ranking, Elon has an overall rank of #146.
Elon’s overall national ranking compared with other North Carolina institutions:
#5 Duke University
#33 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
#59 Davidson College
#64 Wake Forest University
#112 North Carolina State University
#146 Elon University
#401-500 Campbell University
#401-500 Queens University
#501-600 East Carolina University
#501-600 University of North Carolina at Asheville
#501-600 University of North Carolina at Charlotte
#501-600 University of North Carolina at Greensboro
#501-600 High Point University
>600 Appalachian State University
>600 Johnson and Wales University – Charlotte
>600 Lenoir-Rhyne University
>600 North Carolina A&T State University
>600 North Carolina Central University
>600 University of North Carolina at Wilmington
>600 Western Carolina University
>600 Wingate University