ANNAPOLIS, MD/SANTA FE, NM [September 16, 2022] — St. John’s College has recently been recognized as one of the top institutions of higher education in the country by several national publications, including the Princeton Review, U.S. News and World Report, and the Fiske Guide to Colleges. These publications have praised St. John’s strengths, which include small class sizes, personalized attention to students, culture of active learning and sharing of ideas and insights across its two campuses—located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Annapolis, Maryland—and overall value. St. John’s lowered tuition by one-third in 2018 and offers both merit- and need-based scholarships that make it one of the most affordable liberal arts colleges in the United States.

“We are proud that St. John’s College is being recognized for our rigorous educational program and increasing network of student supports,” said Collegewide and Santa Fe President Mark Roosevelt. “Making progress on student success, graduation rates, and Pell recipient supports have been a priority for us, and these rankings reflect that progress.”

In the Princeton Review’s 2023 The Best 388 Colleges: 2023 Edition, St. John’s beat every Ivy League school in the “Professors Get High Marks” and “Best Classroom Experience” categories, where it was ranked #6 and #7, respectively. The college ranked highly in the “Most Accessible Professors,” “Students Study the Most,” and “Lots of Race/Class Interaction” categories. The Princeton Review also named St. John’s a “Top 50 Best Value College” among private schools and one of the “Colleges That Pay You Back.” This last classification rates colleges for a combination of factors: academics, admissions, financial aid, fire safety, green, ROI (Return on Investment), and quality of life.

“Rankings shouldn’t be the main reason a student chooses a college,” said Annapolis President Nora Demleitner. “But, they can show where an institution’s priorities lie. And for St. John’s, that has often been our excellent faculty, our focus on student learning, and the financial value that has resulted from our tuition reset and growing philanthropic support.”

In the 2023 U.S. News and World Report Best Colleges, the college continued its climb among top national liberal arts colleges, including the best-ever ranking for the Santa Fe campus. The college was third among this group for having the smallest classes and for the lowest student-to-faculty ratio. Notably, based on the number of Pell Grant recipients and their graduation rates, Santa Fe ranked #17 among “Top Performers on Social Mobility,” which reflects its high percentage of Pell grant recipients—and the high rates at which they graduate. St. John’s College is a “Best Value,” which considers a school’s academic quality and the net cost of attendance for students receiving financial aid. The higher the quality of the program and the lower the cost, the better the deal. The college was also praised for innovation and undergraduate teaching.

Earlier this year, St. John’s College was named a “Best Buy School” by Fiske Guide to Colleges. For nearly 40 years, the Fiske Guide to Colleges has chosen a select group of schools noted for quality academic offerings and affordable cost for its annual Best Buy list, comprising twenty public and private colleges and universities from across the country. These are schools that, in the judgment of the editors, offer “outstanding educational value as determined by academic quality in relation to the net cost of attendance.”
Learn more at sjc.edu/rankings.

ABOUT ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE

St. John’s College is one of the most distinctive colleges in the country due to its all-required Great Books curriculum. At St. John’s, undergraduate and graduate students read more than 200 of the most important books across dozens of subjects and discuss those books with faculty in small, seminar-style classes. Located on two campuses in two historic state capitals—Annapolis, Maryland, and Santa Fe, New Mexico—St. John’s is the third oldest college in the United States and has been hailed as the “most contrarian college in America” by the New York Times, the “most rigorous college in America” by Forbes, and the “most forward-thinking, future-proof college in America” by Quartz.

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ANNAPOLIS MEDIA CONTACT: Sara Luell, Director of Digital Marketing and Strategic Communications, sara.luell(at)sjc.edu
SANTA FE MEDIA CONTACT: Frank O’Mahony, Associate Director of Marketing and Communications, frank.omahony(at)sjc.edu