ALMA — Alma College recently received nods from national higher education guides, who tout the college for its affordability and value added, particularly for students from low-income families.

Alma was ranked No. 12 in the Midwest region and No. 15 in “Best Value Schools” by U.S. News & World Report for the 2022-23 academic year. Alma was also touted as No. 6 in “Best Undergraduate Teaching” and No. 42 in “Top Performers on Social Mobility.”

Now in its 38th year, the rankings evaluate more than 1,450 colleges and universities on up to 17 measures of academic quality.

“For nearly 40 years, the Best Colleges methodology has continuously evolved to reflect changes in the higher education landscape and the interests of prospective students,” said Kim Castro, editor and chief content officer at U.S. News. “Guiding that evolution is U.S. News’ mission of providing useful data and information to help with one of life’s biggest decisions.”

Prospective students can see how Alma compares to other institutions and how the rankings are calculated on usnews.com.

Washington Monthly also recently released its college rankings guide. The rankings are based on publicly available federal data and focus largely on outcomes for students at 442 national universities, such as social mobility and college loan debt, along with research excellence.

“Instead of rating colleges by wealth, fame, and exclusivity, we prize social mobility, public service, and research,” the Monthly states in its news release announcing the rankings. “The other rankings elevate colleges for keeping low-income students out. Ours reward them for letting those students in, and then helping them graduate with degrees that lead to good jobs, without unmanageable debt.”

Alma was ranked No. 42 out of 259 ranked institutions on the Monthly’s list of Bachelor’s Colleges and No. 168 out of 387 ranked institutions on the “Bang for the Buck” Midwest colleges list. Alma scored highly, relative to peer institutions, on data points including eight-year graduation rate (65%).

You can see the Monthly’s complete rankings system at washingtonmonthly.com/2022-college-guide/.