UH Touts Strong National, International Rankings

For many Big Island high school seniors, the Univeristy of Hawai’i at Manoa is a viable college option. The university believes that it’s among the top schools in the nation following national and international rankings.

Officials at UH believe say that recent recognition from three national and international rankings – College Scoreboard, U.S. News and World Report, and the Academic Ranking of World Universities – affirm the university’s reputation.

“These rankings demonstrate that we are truly among the great universities of the world. We’re also pleased to see that, in terms of a student’s cost to attend, we’re actually ranked below the average nationally,” said UH Chancellor Robert Bley-Vroman. “So this dynamic combination of high-ranked programs and reasonable cost really shows that we are on the right track. Our University and state have a lot to be proud of.”

College Scoreboard

College Scoreboard’s rankings were released by the White House during the past week, and the numbers show UH ranking above the national average in several categories.

The United States Department of Education says UH surpassed the national average in areas including loan repayment, 88 percent compared to 67 percent nationally, and salaries after attending the school, $44,300 annually, compared to $34,434 nationally.

UH also has a high first-year return rate with 78 percent of student returning, compared to the national average of 67 percent. At UH, 56 percent of students go on to graduate, in comparison to the national average of 44 percent.

U.S. News and World Report 

In the U.S. News and World Report rankings, UH has improved by three spots in the 2016 ranking from 164 to 161. More than 1,800 colleges of the over 3,000 four-year institutions across the country were surveyed in the ranking.

International rankings

Around the world, UH received global recognition for its research excellence. The Academic Ranking of World Universities, based at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, ranked UH in the range of 66 to 78 in the U.S. and 151 to 200 globally. The ranking brings UH to the top one percent in the world out of over 20,000 universities worldwide, considering the 1,200 research universities in the world under consideration for the ranking.

The U.K. based QS and Times Higher Education’s world university rankings place UH between 250 and 320 among all world universities and between 60 and 90 among universities in the United States.

UH was ranked 107th in the U.S. and 321st in the world by the U.S. News and World Report in Oct. 2014.