Wall Street Journal ranks UF as No. 1 university in the nation

The University of Florida ranks No. 1 among the top 100 universities, public or private, in the United States, according to a Wall Street Journal editorial.

The Journal’s “University Elite, Reconsidered” evaluated 100 leading universities across the nation on 68 factors, including curricula, academics, student preparation for success, thriving employees and access to civil discourse.

UF not only landed the top spot, but it nabbed a coveted four-star rating, an achievement earned by only one other university that the Journal evaluated.

“This recognition for UF is something we should all be proud of. It demonstrates that at the University of Florida, we have anticipated the re-thinking of the true value of a university education and have invested strategically in our programs and in our culture to seize this moment of opportunity,” UF Board of Trustees Chair Mori Hosseini and UF Interim President Donald W. Landry wrote in an email sent Friday to UF students, faculty, staff and alumni.

The Wall Street Journal wrote in its Thursday piece that “the definition of an elite education has been undergoing revision of late, as top universities from Harvard to Columbia to Northwestern have too often betrayed their commitment to free inquiry on campus.”

The editorial board explained that its new ranking system “aims to better capture excellence in key tenets of a college education.”

The revised rankings take points away in the ranking process for schools that use diversity, equity and inclusion in a way that “elevates activism over academic inquiry,” and rewards institutions whose professors are “expanding knowledge” in areas such as economics, natural sciences, U.S. history and more.

The University of Texas at Austin, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Texas A&M University and the University of Notre Dame round out the top five.

UF wasn’t the only Florida school to find itself in the top 10 of the revised rankings. Florida State University ranked at No. 7.

“On those criteria, a new set of universities rose to the top. The University of Florida, University of Texas at Austin and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill capture the top three spots thanks to specific programs that have elevated civic discourse and top-flight academic programs,” the editorial explained.

Not a single Ivy League school made the top 10, with Columbia ranking the highest at No. 34 and Harvard at No. 37.

“At the University of Florida, we’re doing what universities are supposed to be doing, and we’re doing it better than anyone else in the country,” Hosseini and Landry wrote in their email.