Editor’s Note: The following post comes from the University of Missouri.
“The University of Missouri Honors College has announced that, effective for Fall semester 2017, all Honors students will have priority registration and be able to register for classes on Day 1 of registration for every subsequent semester (inclusive of Fall 2017), by assigned hours (as determined by credit hours earned).
“Also, beginning January 1, 2017 the College will become the hosts to the Cherng Program in Honors. With the support of Andrew & Peggy Cherng and the Panda Charitable Foundation, the College will offer an innovative, fully interdisciplinary general education curriculum which will be team taught, include faculty guided research and problem-based learning, and tie into an experiential opportunity to travel to Kuala Lumpur or Hawai’i for an immersive experience.
“The gift will also allow Mizzou to support up to 20 Cherng Scholars, providing undergraduates a stipend of at least $5,000 for participating in the curricular program or undertaking research and artistry in the summer months. The generous support of the Cherng’s and the Panda Charitable Foundation will allow the College to offer nearly 400 undergraduate research and artistry positions each year.”
The following is from Forbes magazine:
“Andrew and Peggy Cherng have made a fortune selling orange chicken, chow mein, potstickers and spring rolls, to mall shoppers, airport travelers and others who visit one of their nearly 1,900 Panda Express quick-service outlets in the U.S., Canada and a few international outposts. Now they are looking to increase their global footprint and are also experimenting with new flavors and formats at their Pasadena, Calif. Innovation Kitchen, selling salads, wraps and build-your-own choices.
“The couple who emigrated from China (Andrew) and Burma (Peggy) paid $103 million in 2015 for a 4.9% stake in Golden Eagle Retail Group, a Hong Kong-listed operator of shopping malls in China. It’s a far way from Baker University in Baldwin, Kansas where they first met. She went on to get a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, he a master’s degree in applied mathematics. He got into the restaurant business first, opening a sit-down restaurant with his dad in 1973.
“Ten years later, she gave up her career as a software developer (3M, McDonnell Douglas) to help him, launching their first Panda Express in the second largest mall in Los Angeles County. Today they have restaurants in 48 states with international locations in Mexico, Korea and Dubai.”
Editor’s note: This post has now been updated, effective September 14, 2021, to include new U.S. News rankings for 20212. Listed below are the yearly rankings and overall average rankings of 123 national universities that were included in the first tier of the U.S. News Best Colleges from 2015 through 2022. There are 61 public and 62 private universities. The list below not only shows the average rankings over this eight-year period but also lists the number of places lost or gained by each university.
The post also has rankings for 11 other universities that we will begin tracking.
U.S. News has changed its methodology, and there are some significant changes, especially after the top 30-35 places in the rankings.
The organization deserves considerable credit for the changes in 2020 and, even more, for those made in 2021.
The new methodology definitely mitigates some of the worst effects of the old ranking system. “For the 2021 edition, U.S. News reduced the weight of SAT/ACT standardized tests to 5% (7.75% previously) and reduced the weight of high school class standing to 2% (2.25% previously) toward schools’ overall scores. The weight of alumni giving was reduced to 3% (5% previously) toward each school’s overall rank.”
Other changes:
“Two new ranking indicators that measure graduate indebtedness were added to the rankings this year:
Graduate indebtedness total. This is the average amount of accumulated federal loan debt among the 2019 bachelor’s degree graduating class that took out federal loans (weighted 3%). For non-responders to the U.S. News financial aid survey, the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard’s most recent cohort of institutional median graduate indebtedness was adjusted and used in its place.
Graduate indebtedness proportion. This is the percentage of graduates from the 2019 bachelor’s degree graduating class who borrowed federal loans (2%). For non-responders to the U.S. News financial aid survey, the College Scorecard’s most recent institutional cohort of proportion of undergraduates borrowing was adjusted and used in its place.
“U.S. News also calculated a new graduate indebtedness rank, which is the combination of the two indebtedness indicators for ranked schools. It provides a benchmark for how schools compare in terms of total graduate indebtedness among those with debt and the proportion of graduates with debt. For schools ranked highest, it means their recent bachelor’s degree graduates had relatively little debt and a relatively small proportion of students graduating with debt compared with other schools. This graduate indebtedness rank is available on each school’s Rankings section on usnews.com.”
“Outcomes weight increased: As a result of adding graduate indebtedness, the rankings factors that measure outcomes now account for 40% of the ranking, up from 35% last year. The outcomes rank displayed on each school’s Rankings section on usnews.com is composed of these ranking factors: graduation and retention rates; graduation rate performance; social mobility; and graduate indebtedness.”
Here are the historical rankings, the average of each school across eight years, and the increase or decline of each school from 2015 through 2022. The universities are listed in order of their 2022 rankings.