Furman moves up in WSJ/THE rankings

Furman University moved up 13 spots in the Best Colleges 2021 rankings released this week by The Wall Street Journal and Times Higher Education.

The rankings place Furman as the top college or university in South Carolina among both public and private institutions. Furman ranked No. 135 out of nearly 800 U.S. colleges or universities that made the list.

The WSJ/THE College Ranking is designed to “put graduate success and student learning at its heart.”

The rankings are based on 15 factors across four main categories. Forty percent of each school’s overall score comes from student outcomes, including graduates’ salaries and debt; 30% comes from academic resources, including how much the college spends on teaching; 20% from student engagement, including whether students feel prepared to use their education in the real world, and 10% from the learning environment, including the diversity of the student body and academic staff.

Furman improved its scores in all four categories.

The WSJ/THE college rankings emphasize the return on investment that students see after they graduate. Schools that fare the best on this list have graduates who generally are satisfied with their educational experience and land relatively high-paying jobs that can help them pay down student loans.

The complete list of ranked U.S. colleges and universities is available here (subscription required).