By: Commentator Staff  | 

YU Improves in WSJ/Times Higher Education Rankings, Places 119th

Yeshiva University ranked 119th in a just-released report by the Wall Street Journal and Times Higher Education. This represented a significant improvement, as last year YU placed 141st in the same WSJ/Times ranking. Harvard University bested all other Ivy League and top-tier universities to take the ranking’s top spot.

YU’s improved ranking comes just two weeks after U.S. News downgraded the university 28 places to 94th. Yeshiva had consistently placed in and around the Top 50 for a decade in that ranking prior to last year’s fall to 66th.

This improvement also comes on the heels of the investiture of YU’s fifth president, Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, whose inaugural address called for bringing the university into the “World of Tomorrow” by recognizing evolving industries and marketplaces that Yeshiva students must be prepared to enter.

YU’s Office for Communication and Public Affairs did not immediately respond to comment on the improved ranking.

To produce the rankings, each school is assessed on four categories: resources, such as finance per student and faculty per student; engagement, measured in part by student recommendation; outcomes, including graduation rate and alumni salaries; and diversity among student and faculty educational, national, and ethnic backgrounds. Unsurprisingly, YU scored lowest in the diversity category, gaining a mere 3.8/10. Resources was its highest scoring category, winning 23.8 out of 30 points.

Data for the rankings was collected from directly surveying at least 50 students per college as well as from United States government data collections, such as the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System and the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

YU’s increase was the result of mild improvements in its outcomes, resources, and engagement rankings.