September 05, 2024

Susquehanna University has climbed in the Wall Street Journal/College Pulse 2025 rankings, moving into the upper half of the nation’s top 500 colleges and universities.

The WSJ/College Pulse 2025 Best Colleges in the U.S. rankings begin with a list of over 3,000 U.S. institutions, narrowing to the top 500 schools. Susquehanna ranks within the top 40% of these, coming in at No. 189 — a leap of more than 80 spots above its 2024 ranking.

Within Pennsylvania, Susquehanna holds the No. 18 spot among the colleges and universities. Nationally, it ranks in the top half for both best salaries, which assess the impact of a schools’ education on graduate earnings relative to tuition costs, and student experience. Additionally, Susquehanna is also ranked No. 221 for social mobility, nationally recognizing its role in advancing students’ socio-economic status.

The 2025 Best Colleges guide is powered by one of the largest ever independent surveys of verified college students and recent graduates in the U.S. This year the ranking was expanded to include an additional 100 schools that either didn’t rank among the top 400 last year or lacked adequate survey responses, which account for 25% of a college’s overall score.

Tens of thousands of survey responses are factored into the ranking. The Wall Street Journal and College Pulse, a college-focused survey and research firm, asked dozens of questions on topics covering student life, career preparation and the quality of classrooms, dining halls and sports facilities. This year, the survey introduced new questions focused on the extent to which the colleges develop character strengths that help students make a meaningful contribution to society, including moral courage, resilience and fairness. This year’s ranking also features a finer-tuned model for calculations related to how much colleges boost their students’ graduation rates and salaries. The new model was developed with input from data scientists at Statista.

The overall ranking is based on 12 factors across three categories:

• 70% of each school’s overall score comes from student outcomes, including a measure of graduate salaries;

• 20% from the learning environment a school provides to its students, including the quality a college’s learning-related facilities, interactions with faculty, and the extent to which students feel the college has developed character strengths that will help them to make a meaningful contribution to society; and

• 10% from the diversity of its students and staff, including economic diversity.