Florida’s flagship university fell in the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings, released Sept. 22, with the University of Florida dropping three spots to No. 10 among public universities.
UF first cracked the top 10 in 2017, jumping from No. 14 to No. 9. The university reached a high of No. 5 among public institutions in the 2022 rankings before holding steady at No. 7 the past two years.
U.S. News & World Report evaluated more than 1,700 colleges and universities using 17 measures of academic quality for its 2027 Best Colleges rankings.
Peer assessment and student outcomes carried the most weight in the methodology, accounting for more than 70% of the overall ranking.
UF awards 3,100 degrees during Summer 2026 commencement ceremonies
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Graduates celebrate during the University of Florida’s Summer 2026 Commencement Ceremony at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center in Gainesville on Saturday, Aug. 8, 2026. The university awarded bachelor’s and master’s degrees to more than 3,100 students from a variety of colleges over the weekend.
(Alan Youngblood, Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun)
The top factors this year included peer assessment (20%), graduation rates (16%), graduation rate performance (10%), financial resources per student (8%) and faculty salaries (8%).
The University of California – Berkeley ranked as the nation’s No. 1 public university.
Among all universities, UF fell four spots to No. 34 and tied with seven other institutions. Northeastern University and Villanova University were tied for No. 42.
Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, was the highest-ranked school in the Southeastern Conference, moving up one spot to No. 16 overall.
Related: UF places No. 4 among public universities in new Time rankings
Florida State University dropped one spot to No. 22 among public universities and fell eight spots to No. 59 overall.Among all institutions, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ranked first, followed by Princeton University, Harvard University, Yale University and the California Institute of Technology.
The rankings come less than three months after Dr. Stuart Bell was appointed UF’s 14th president in July.
In his first statement following his appointment, Bell said, “… UF is uniquely positioned to be consistently recognized as one of the top five public universities in the country …”
“Over the past several months, as I’ve prepared for this role, I’ve had many conversations with the Board of Trustees about where the University of Florida is today, where we have the opportunity to go and what it will take to get there,” he said.
Bell served as president of the University of Alabama for 10 years before being named the sole finalist in UF’s presidential search in May. The UF Board of Trustees unanimously approved his appointment in June.
Before becoming Alabama’s president, Bell spent 26 years at the university. He also briefly served as provost and professor of engineering at Louisiana State University. In addition, he served as president of the Southeastern Conference from 2023 to 2025 and as a member of its Executive Committee from 2021 to 2025.
His contract at UF runs through June 30, 2031, and he will earn an average annual salary of $2.4 million.
This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: University of Florida falls in latest U.S. News college rankings