For the eighth consecutive year U.S. News and World Report Magazine has ranked BYU-Hawaii among the top tier of best comprehensive bachelor's schools in the western United States in several categories of its 2007 edition of "America's Best Colleges" survey.
The results show BYU-Hawaii ranked as the western region's number-one comprehensive college-bachelor's in the magazine's annual best value category, number-three for its students having the "least debt," and number-four overall in the west.
Although approximately 50% of BYU-Hawaii students come from 74 countries outside the United States, the university did not rank in the survey for racial diversity, which showed a high of 36%, because U.S. News does not include international students in those measurements.
For purposes of the annual survey, a "comprehensive college-bachelor's" is defined as an institution that focuses on undergraduate education and offers less than half of its degrees in a range of liberal arts while the remainder are in professional areas such as business and education. The western region includes Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and all other U.S. states west of those.
The magazine further indicates its "rankings system rests on two pillars. It relies on quantitative measures that education experts have proposed as reliable indicators of academic quality [such as assessment by administrators at peer institutions, retention of students, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources, alumni giving and graduation rate performance] and it's based on our nonpartisan view of what matters in education."
"We are all really pleased that U.S. News has ranked the university in the top tier for the eighth year in a row," said BYU-Hawaii Vice President of Academics, Dr. Keith Roberts.
"These results reflect on our outstanding faculty, staff and students; and we're not only happy about this for ourselves, we are also pleased about what it means for our state. This shows Hawaii is a place where a student can come and study in a beautiful environment with high academic quality."
University President Eric B. Shumway attributes the school's excellent ranking for "least debt" to the close relationship with the adjacent Polynesian Cultural Center, which consistently employs over 700 BYU-Hawaii students. Of that number, more than 500 participate in the jointly administered International Work Experience Scholarship program that enables student participants to graduate debt free.