UVA moves up in national college rankings

After falling out of U.S. News & World Report’s list of top 25 national universities last year, UVA has inched closer back to that coveted cohort. This year UVA moved up two slots, to No. 26, tying with Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, in the 2021 U.S. News Best Colleges rankings.

For a second year, UVA remained the fourth best public university in the country, behind No. 1 University of California-Los Angeles, No. 2 University of California-Berkeley and No. 3 University of Michigan.

In other rankings, UVA did well in Money’s Best Colleges for Your Money, climbing from No. 10 last year to No. 6 in its 2020 list.

The data used in both rankings predates the pandemic. But during the ongoing health crisis that’s left many struggling financially, Money opted to more heavily weight affordability this year than it has in the past. Affordability, which includes the net price of a degree and average student debt, made up 40 percent of the weighted score, up from 33 percent last year. UVA was among the more affordable schools in the top 10.