Baylor University Earns High Ranking for Student Engagement by The Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings

September 23, 2020

Contact: Terry Goodrich, Baylor University Media and Public Relations, 254-644-4155
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WACO, Texas (Sept. 23, 2020) — The Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings 2021 has ranked Baylor University No. 5 nationally in the category of engagement, which measures how well a university informs, inspires and challenges students.

Baylor also earned top ranking of the Big 12 universities in the engagement classification of the rankings, which included 797 institutions.

The College Rankings is a pioneering ranking of United States colleges and universities that puts student success and learning at its heart. The ranking adopts a balanced scorecard approach, with four pillars — engagement, outcomes, resources and environment — that combine 15 individual performance indicators to create an overall score reflecting an institution’s strength.

The ranking is designed to answer the questions that matter most to students and their families when making one of the most important decisions of their lives: who to trust with their education.

Measures of engagement include:

The extent that the college or university supports critical thinking, such as developing new concepts or evaluating different points of view

The extent that the teaching supports reflection on, or making connections among, the things that the student has learned, such as combining ideas from different lessons to complete a task

The extent to which the teaching supports application of student’s learning to the real world, such as taking study excursions to see concepts in action

The extent to which the college challenges the student, such as presenting new ways of thinking to challenge assumptions or values

Earlier this month, Baylor rose to No. 76 in the 2021 U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges. It was named No. 19 for first-year experiences and No. 25 for most innovative schools. The rankings evaluate more than 1,400 colleges and universities on 17 indicators of academic quality.

ABOUT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY

Baylor University is a private Christian University and a nationally ranked research institution. The University provides a vibrant campus community for more than 18,000 students by blending interdisciplinary research with an international reputation for educational excellence and a faculty commitment to teaching and scholarship. Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas through efforts of Baptist pioneers, Baylor is the oldest continually operating University in Texas. Located in Waco, Baylor welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 90 countries to study a broad range of degrees among its 12 nationally recognized academic divisions.