The Middle Ground
The best regional universities combine low costs, high academic standards and an intimate atmosphere
The 558 regional colleges and universities in the U.S. News survey occupy a vast middle ground of American higher education. Compared with better-known national universities and colleges, their student bodies tend to be more local and home-grown, their costs generally lower and their campuses less pressured. Here are the top-ranked schools--all repeat winners--in each of the category's four regions:
NORTH
Academic innovations helped make Worcester Polytechnic Institute the top ranked of 168 Northeastern regional universities in the U.S. News survey for the second consecutive year. And they took place not just on WPI's hilly campus in central Massachusetts but 3,500 miles away in Guayaquil, Ecuador, as well. That's where WPI established its 16th overseas studies program. As they do at each of the other overseassites--which range from London and St. Petersburg to Bangkok--students at WPI-in-Ecuador spend two months working with local officials on projects designed to apply American technical know-how to environmental and business problems.
When students return to Worcester from Ecuador, they can complement their on-the-ground experiences by enrolling in some of WPI's 18 new and forthcoming courses in Spanish, Latin American culture and international politics. These days, says Associate Dean Lance Schachterle, "A global perspective is important because students going into American manufacturing have to design products that make sense in other countries."
SOUTH
It was a message graduating classes have been hearing for centuries, but novelist Tom Clancy, in an address at North Carolina's Wake Forest University, drove the point home especially hard. "The grades you will get in the real world will be far harsher than anything you have complained about here," Clancy told last May's graduates at "Wake," which ranked No. 1 among the 147 Southern regional schools for the sixth year in a row.
Although life on the university's bucolic campus in Winston-Salem hardly resembles "the real world," Wake Forest strives to prepare its 3,650 undergraduates for life after college by encouraging them to participate in volunteer programs during the school year or in one of a dozen summer internships with nonprofit groups. Wake students usually arrange the summer internships themselves, and the university pays them $1,800 each.
Melody Miller, a senior sociology major from Winston-Salem, found that her internship--working with local teenagers who were on probation for crimes such as shoplifting--was "a real eye-opener. I didn't feel very effective in a classroom environment," she says. "I learned a lot more than I could have from a book."
Other Wake undergraduates take time off during the school year to work with the Volunteer Service Corps, a student-run organization that channels volunteers into local shelters, soup kitchens and homes for children where they work closely with the needy. Although 700 students joined the VSC last year, cochairman Matthew Rebello, a senior from Boston, is still not satisfied. His goal: to raise the number of student volunteers to 1,000. Rebello confidently predicts: "We're going to plaster this campus with volunteerism."
MIDWEST
At a time when other schools are deferring maintenance and scaling back expansion plans, Illinois Wesleyan--for the fourth year in a row the top ranked of 131 Midwestern universities in the U.S. News survey--has embarked on an ambitious scheme to further enhance facilities on its quiet campus in residential Bloomington. The United Methodist-affiliated school recently launched a $58 million fund drive--the largest in its 142-year history--that among other projects will finance a long-needed $21 million science center and a $15 million athletic facility. "The new buildings are a mark of our financial health," says Acting Provost Roger Schnaitter.
Although Illinois Wesleyan's best-known alumni are graduates of its performing-arts programs--soprano Dawn Upshaw, class of 1982, won her second Grammy award this year--more than 20 percent of its 1,850 undergraduates major in one of the sciences, compared with a national average of only 4 percent. Some of IW's more ambitious students, like Tim Culbertson from Carmel, Ind., try to take advantage of both the university's high-quality programs in the sciences and those in the performing arts. Culbertson, a tuba player who is studying music, is thinking about adding an unlikely second major: physics. He was drawn to Illinois Wesleyan not just by the breadth of its curriculum but also by its commitment to individual students, something he decided would be lacking at the larger Big 10 schools he had considered. The summer before he arrived on campus, Illinois Wesleyan made a gesture that convinced him he had made the right decision. The school lent Culbertson a tuba until he could save enough money to afford to blow his own horn.
WEST
More than half of all universities cut back on spending last year, but not San Antonio's Trinity University, which for the fourth consecutive year is first among 112 Western regional institutions. Trinity's $320 million endowment--generated largely by donations from alumni who struck oil--enables the school to pursue projects beyond the range of many of its peers. And tuition, a modest $10,920, remains the lowest among the four top regional schools. "At Trinity, it's the opposite of retrenchment," says President Ronald Calgaard. "We can sustain all the initiatives we've begun."
One example is Trinity's Center for Education Leadership, a consortium of Trinity faculty and local education leaders set up last year to explore reform in San Antonio's public schools. Education majors will be able to participate this fall in a national school-reform program, run through the center, which replaces traditional elementary-school classes with smaller groups of students who stay together for longer than a year. "Our students are on the cutting edge," says education Prof. Thomas Sergiovanni.
Deep pockets also yield some important extracurricular benefits. Trinity's Bell Athletic Center reopened this fall with $15 million in renovations, including a sauna, steam room and natatorium where new swimming and diving teams will compete. It ought to suffice for student-athletes, since it's definitely good enough for professionals: The National Football League's Houston Oilers use the center for their summer training. Regional Universities
Over- Academic Student Faculty Finan. Student
all reputa- selec- re- re- satis- Rank name score tion tivity sources sources faction North 1. Worcester Polytech. 100.0 3 4 2 5 7
Inst. (Mass.) 2. Villanova Univer-
sity, (Pa.) 96.7 1 18 3 18 2 3. Fairfield Univer-
sity, (Conn.) 95.3 5 14 8 23 4 4. Alfred Univer.-
(N.Y.) 94.6 11 23 5 2 31 5. Rutgers State Univ.
at Camden (N.J.) 91.0 23 13 1 8 104 6. Trenton State
College (N.J.) 90.7 5 2 13 58 43 7. Ithaca College (N.Y.) 89.3 5 25 19 35 30 8. Susquehanna Univ.
(Pa.) 87.7 20 27 26 17 26 9. Manhattan College 86.4 20 47 12 20 27 10.Hood College (Md.) 86.3 11 69 6 7 37 11.Loyola College (Md.) 85.6 9 33 31 37 22 12.La Salle Univ. (Pa.) 85.4 11 22 9 85 14 13.Simmons College (Mass) 84.8 23 66 15 1 23 14.Rochester Inst. 83.5 1 34 60 4 76
of Tech. (N.Y.) 15.Providence College
(R.I.) 83.4 4 30 54 44 1
Over- Academic Student Faculty Finan. Student
all reputa- selec- re- re- satis- Rank name score tion tivity sources sources faction South 1. Wake Forest
University, (N.C.) 100.1 1 1 4 1 2 2. University of
of Richmond (Va.) 99.0 2 5 1 6 1 3. Berea College (Ky.) 95.7 5 4 12 2 30 4. Stetson Univer-
sity (Fla.) 93.9 6 19 5 9 15 5. Rollins College
(Fla.) 92.6 6 22 7 16 5 6. Samford Univer-
sity (Ala.) 89.7 11 12 23 20 13 7. University of Alabama
in Huntsville 89.0 11 24 8 5 75 7. Mercer University
(Ga.) 89.0 13 30 20 4 7 9. Florida International
University 87.1 19 7 3 55 34 10.Loyola University
New Orleans (La.) 86.3 6 41 9 11 66 11.University of Central
Florida 84.8 13 8 21 59 22 12.Mary Washington
College (Va.) 82.5 13 2 13 101 9 13.The Citadel (S.C.) 81.9 6 69 6 33 8 14.University of N.C.
Charlotte 81.5 6 21 10 80 52 15.Appalachian State
Univ. (N.C.) 81.1 19 13 16 77 27
Over- Academic Student Faculty Finan. Student
all reputa- selec- re- re- satis- Rank name score tion tivity sources sources faction Midwest 1. Illinois Weslyan
University 100.0 1 1 3 7 1 2. St. Mary's College
(Ind.) 94.7 8 24 1 5 2 3. Valparalso Univer-
sity (Ind.) 93.9 1 10 14 20 6 4. Michigan Technological
University 92.8 8 13 4 13 43 5. DePaul University
(Ill.) 92.0 1 7 9 38 22 6. Butler University
(Ind.) 90.4 13 18 17 6 23 7. Creighton Univer-
sity (Neb.) 90.3 1 51 2 2 14 8. St. Norbert College
(Wis.) 89.2 1 41 8 19 4 9. John Carroll
University (Ohio) 87.8 8 22 13 39 3 10. Millikin University
(Ill.) 84.3 17 37 24 8 20 11. Ohio Northern
University 83.7 31 20 25 14 23 12. University of
Dayton (Ohio) 83.2 8 54 20 15 7 13. Central College
(Iowa) 82.4 31 17 40 9 16 14. Calvin College
(Mich.) 82.3 17 27 16 43 30 15. University of
St. Thomas 82.2 8 36 42 16 9
(Minn.)
Over- Academic Student Faculty Finan. Student
all reputa- selec- re- re- satis- Rank name score tion tivity sources sources faction West 1. Trinity University
(Texas) 100.1 1 1 1 2 3 2. Santa Clara University
(Calif.) 94.8 3 12 2 13 1 3. Whittier College
(Calif.) 93.2 5 13 4 10 15 4. University of San
Diego 91.8 5 10 8 18 11 5. University of Puget
Sound (Wash.) 91.2 4 17 11 7 16 6. Loyola Marymount Univ.
(Calif.) 89.6 5 28 6 11 4 7. Pacific Lutheran Univ.
(Wash.) 87.6 10 19 13 17 7 8. St. Mary's College of
Calif. 85.8 28 4 24 9 5 9. Gonzaga University
(Wash.) 83.9 10 34 10 19 14 10. Seattle University 83.3 10 26 22 15 19 11. University of Redlands
(Calif.) 81.3 10 31 33 8 9 12. Linfield College
(Ore.) 78.7 19 24 32 20 12 13. California Poly-
Pomona 77.0 5 15 31 43 65 14. Humboldt State University
(Calif.) 76.9 28 14 12 27 96 15. University of the Pacific
(Calif.) 76.7 28 50 17 6 6
This story appears in the September 28, 1992 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.