Ranked No. 1: BYU Students Are More Likely to Recommend BYU

April 2024

Last fall the Wall Street Journal and College Pulse recognized BYU as one of the best universities in the country. Coming in at number 20 overall, BYU joined the likes of Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale. The data behind the report came from one of the largest surveys of US students ever conducted.

In the “student recommendation” subcategory, BYU recorded a score of 93 out of 100—the highest of all 400 schools ranked. The score measures how highly students would recommend their college to a friend, whether they would choose the college again if they could start over, and their satisfaction with the value for money their college provides.

These new rankings focus on the value added by colleges, with an emphasis on how much a college improves its students’ chances of graduating on time and how much the college boosts the salaries the students earn after graduation. In the subcategory of “salary impact,” BYU ranked number 13 in the country.

Overall, student outcomes (i.e., salary impact, years to pay off net price, graduation rate) were weighted at 70 percent, learning environment (i.e., learning opportunities, preparation for career, recommendation score) at 20 percent, and diversity (i.e., opportunities to interact with students from different backgrounds, ethnic diversity, international diversity) at 10 percent.