On September 23, U.S. News & World Report released its 2025-2026 National Liberal Arts College Rankings, dropping Middlebury College to 19th place. It dropped eight spots from the previous year and is tied with Grinnell College and Washington and Lee University. This ranking is the lowest since Middlebury College first appeared on the list at 17th place in 1988.
U.S. News considers 13 factors to evaluate liberal arts colleges, including graduation rates, financial resources, faculty resources, social mobility, standardized test scores, and peer ratings. This year’s data shows that Middlebury College’s faculty resources remain in the top 10 nationally, demonstrating that the school’s high academic expectations remain unchanged. However, Middlebury’s financial strength has fallen to 45th place, and its social mobility ranking is tied for 120th place, which undoubtedly contributed to this year’s significant drop in the overall ranking.
In theory, change at a university can take time, so a drop of eight spots in one year raised doubts among some members of the university community. Chief Diversity Officer and Interim Title IX Coordinator Professor Miguel Fernandez said the decrease was insignificant. Fernandez commented on the ineffectiveness of U.S. news rankings in an email to The Campus.
“Middlebury hasn’t changed as much as the criteria that U.S. News uses and modifies on a regular basis. The information they use in their rankings has changed more than Midbury College has changed.” Fernandez The professor wrote that the inclusion of students from Middlebury School of Languages and Breadloaf School of English was one reason for the university’s low endowment-to-student ratio. than just undergraduates. “The rankings are pretty useless because U.S. News is comparing apples to oranges.”
A university spokesperson said that while Middlebury remains a prestigious university, the ranking system may not be accurately capturing it.
“Middlebury College is one of the top universities in the nation, and rankings are only one measure of value,” they wrote in an email to The Campus, noting how other schools are doing in the rankings and their peers. He added that the ranking contributed to the drop in ranking. “Ties in rankings are common and can give the impression of a significant decline from year to year, when in reality the changes are quite subtle.”
The spokesperson also suggested that pandemic-related issues have affected the university’s performance in the rankings, and that suspensions during that period have led to increased student enrollment and fluctuations in graduation rates. Furthermore, Middlebury College’s testing policy, which is voluntary, has played a role in the seemingly drastic changes in rankings.
“Our priority is to fulfill our academic mission of preparing students to lead active, consequential and creative lives, contribute to their communities, and address the world’s most difficult problems. ” Ferrante wrote. “Rather than prioritizing factors that influence a particular ranking, we focus on factors that align with our mission and provide a superior educational experience.”
In an email to The Campus, Dean of Admissions Nicole Carvin wrote that despite the drop in National News rankings, interest in Middlebury has not been affected.
“Interest in Middlebury remains high and our overall admissions process is highly selective…For the class of 2028, we admitted 12% of applicants,” she wrote. “We (admissions officers) have heard that Middlebury College’s reputation as a highly regarded liberal arts and sciences institution remains unchanged.”
This sentiment was echoed by some students, including Dani Pham ’28.
“For me, the value of school includes social life, opportunities abroad, things to do in town, etc. Academics are important, but at some point all schools will have the same results,” Pham said. I wrote it. “The overall value of Middlebury remains the same for me because even if we move down the rankings, the faculty and opportunities are still the same and the curriculum teaches us how to think critically.”
Nevertheless, some faculty expressed concern about the drop in rankings and its underlying causes, noting that Middlebury College’s decline in rankings did not start this year. Jason Mittel, professor of film and media studies, acknowledged the flawed nature of rankings and the impact they have on perceptions of universities.
“While we all know that these rankings have many flaws in their ability to quantify and compare highly complex university experiences, they still have a significant impact on university reputations.” Mittel wrote in an email to The Campus.
“Based on what we currently know, this decline is due to a number of factors that many Middlebury College faculty have witnessed over the past decade, including increased enrollment, increased class sizes, and decreased financial support for core departments.” “It appears to reflect some significant changes that have occurred in recent years,” Professor Mittel wrote.
Marion Wells, the Henry N. Hudson Professor of English, echoed Mittell’s concerns and said universities should view the drop in rankings as a call to action.
“This precipitous decline in ratings requires the university to carefully consider its priorities to ensure that areas that are core to Middlebury’s undergraduate academic experience are given the focus and resources they deserve. This is one of the major signs that this is the case,” Wells wrote in an email to The Weekly. campus.
As faculty and others have pointed out, rankings cannot completely define a university because many important factors, such as culture and living conditions, cannot be quantified but are essential to a student’s college experience. you can’t. Still, while fluctuations in rankings serve as a tool to evaluate a university’s operations from various angles, thinking about them for too long can cause unnecessary stress.
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“These rankings make most people feel good when they rank high, but nervous Nelly panics when they rank low,” he writes. “I would venture to say that when we were ranked No. 4, we probably weren’t a No. 4 university, and we probably weren’t No. 19 today, but rather somewhere in between.”
Editor’s note: Jason Mittel is a faculty advisor at The Campus.
