Great news for the University of Michigan!

Money Magazine’s annual Best College rankings has come out, and the University of Michigan ranks as the 5th best public college in the country.

All of us in Michigan should be very proud and thankful that we have access to such a great college here in Michigan.

According to the report, Maine Maritime Academy, the University of California-Berkeley, the University of California-Irvine. and the University of Virginia were the only public institutes in America to be ranked higher than Michigan.

When you include private colleges and universities, U of M ranked No. 18 on their list, beating their ranking last year by 4 spots.

The Money Magazine ranking list took into account graduation rates, affordability, educational quality, return on investment, and alumni earnings, among other factors.

Believe it or not, Money Magazine said U-M is one of the nation's most affordable elite schools. Only seven schools ranked higher than U of M in the magazine's top 50 when taking into consideration the cost of an in-state degree costing less than $100,000.

That was a surprise to me, although $100,000 is a lot of money.  This does limit access to the school by a lot of us.

According to an article on MLive.com, Money Magazine stated, "The National Science Foundation ranks Michigan as the top public research university in terms of money spent on research and development, a position the school has held since 2010.”

Other Michigan colleges and universities ranked in the Money Magazine review were:

  • Michigan State ranked 109
  • Michigan Tech ranked 127
  • Western Michigan ranked 389
  • UM-Dearborn ranked 439
  • Grand Valley was tied at 473 with Kalamazoo College
  • Central Michigan ranked 483
  • Ferris State ranked 509
  • Kettering University ranked 556
  • Northern Michigan ranked 676

We need to celebrate and be proud of U of M’s ranking and hope other colleges in Michigan continue to climb up the rankings each year.

Let’s discuss this today on my show The Live with Renk show, which airs Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to noon, to let me know your thoughts at (269) 441-9595.

Or please feel free to start a discussion and write your thoughts in the comment section.

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