WalletHub Ranks UM Third Among Top 10 Alabama Colleges and Universities

November 15, 2023

WalletHub recently released its 2024 College & University Rankings report, which placed the University of Montevallo in third place on its list of the top 10 colleges and universities in Alabama.

WalletHub compared more than 800 institutions in the U.S. across 30 key measures. The data set is grouped into seven categories – student selectivity, cost and financing, faculty resources, campus safety, campus experience, educational outcomes and career outcomes. Data collected is relevant to undergraduate students only.

Those dimensions were evaluated using 30 relevant metrics, which ranged from student-faculty ratio to graduation rate to post-attendance median salary. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the best school performance and the most favorable conditions for undergraduate students during and after attendance. Each school’s weighted average was determined across all metrics to calculate its overall score, and WalletHub used the resulting scores to rank-order their sample.

UM received high scores among Alabama schools in the following metrics:

• Admission rate – third place
• Student-faculty ratio – third place
• On-campus crime – fifth place

The data used to create this ranking were collected from the National Center for Education Statistics, Council for Community and Economic Research, U.S. Department of Education, COLLEGEdata and PayScale. Some institutions were excluded from the sample due to data limitations.

Standardized test scores are currently not required for admission and the University has frozen tuition rates since 2018.

Learn more about the University of Montevallo at montevallo.edu.

ABOUT THE UNIVERSITY OF MONTEVALLO

Established in 1896, the overriding mission of the University of Montevallo, unique in higher education in Alabama, is to provide to students from throughout the state an affordable, geographically accessible, “small college” public higher educational experience of high quality, with a strong emphasis on undergraduate liberal studies and with professional programs supported by a broad base of arts and sciences, designed for their intellectual and personal growth in the pursuit of meaningful employment and responsible, informed citizenship.

To enhance student success within a vibrant campus community, the University of Montevallo provides a premier educational experience characterized by distinguished degree programs, personalized instruction delivered by highly qualified faculty and affordable tuition. Enriched by an array of opportunities, the UM experience prepares students to enter graduate or professional school or to begin their careers with an understanding of how to succeed in a constantly changing and complex world.