RANKINGS

A strong faculty seems obviously important to a good education, so I’m using two data points that get at this measure. The first is the percentage of faculty members who have a PhD or other terminal degree—in other words, the highest degree offered in their field. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re good teachers, but we know they have serious interest in and are among the most knowledgeable about their area of study. Since I’m much more interested in professors whose first commitment is to the school and who will be around when I have questions, I’m only using CDS data for full-time professors.

Here are the colleges at which 95% or higher of full-time instructors have earned a PhD or other terminal degree.

Second, Princeton Review surveys over a hundred thousand college students every year, and I want to take advantage of that. In my opinion, students who are currently experiencing a college know its strengths and weaknesses much better than an administrator at some other college.

One of their questions asks whether they think their professors are interesting, and that opinion is a great companion for the other professor quality rating mentioned above. I’ve used the scores for each college provided in Princeton Review’s Best 386 Colleges book (2021 edition). Since gathering these numbers involved investment of quite a bit of effort and funding, I’m guessing Princeton Review would prefer I not list the specific scores. Hopefully, though, they’ll be okay with me listing at which schools students give their professors a score of 90 or above. And, of course, encouraging you to consult their online resources to see the specific scores.