Claflin University Ranked Among Top 10 HBCUs for Eighth Consecutive Year by U.S. News and World Report

Claflin University’s distinguished reputation for academic excellence and developing a diverse and inclusive community of globally engaged visionary leaders continues to earn the University national recognition.  U.S. News and World Report placed Claflin seventh on its 2019 ranking of the nation’s top 20 historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Claflin moved up two places after being ranked ninth last year.  The announcement marks the eighth consecutive year that the prestigious publication has ranked Claflin among the Top 10 institutions. Claflin is also one of only four South Carolina universities/colleges and one of only four HBCUs ranked by U.S. News as being the "Best National Liberal Arts Institutions."

HBCUs listed in U.S. News and World Report are compared only with each other for these rankings. In order to be on the list, a school must be currently designated by the U.S. Department of Education as an HBCU. To qualify for U.S. News rankings, an HBCU also must be an undergraduate baccalaureate-granting institution that enrolls primarily first-year, first-time students and must be a school that is part of the 2019 Best Colleges rankings.

Founded in 1869, Claflin will celebrate its 150^th anniversary as the oldest and first HBCU in South Carolina to provide educational opportunities to all students regardless of gender, race, religion, or ethnic origin.  Claflin's reputation for producing outstanding STEM graduates received more attention when the Computer Accreditation Commission of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) recently granted accreditation to the University’s Computer Science Program, effective retroactively to October 1, 2017.  Significantly, Claflin is now one of only three private colleges or universities in the state of South Carolina with ABET accreditation.  Equally significant, Claflin is among very few UNCF institutions with an ABET-accredited computer science program.

In total, 80 HBCUs were eligible to be included on the U.S. News list; 76 of those were ranked, and four were unranked.  The U.S. News rankings system rests on two pillars: quantitative and qualitative measures that education experts have proposed as reliable indicators of academic quality, and U.S. News' view of what matters in education. The indicators used to capture academic quality fall into six categories: outcome measures, assessment by administrators at peer HBCUs, faculty resources, financial resources, student excellence and alumni giving. The indicators include input measures that reflect a school's student body, its faculty and its financial resources, along with outcome measures – such as graduation rates and first-year student retention rates – that signal how well the institution educates students.
 
The complete U.S. News and World Report ranking of HBCUs can be found at https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/hbcu.