In its annual assessment of national universities, Washington Monthly ranked Fordham 37th in the country, giving the University especially high marks for its commitment to service.
The magazine rated schools based on their contribution to the public good in three broad categories:
- social mobility (recruiting and graduating low-income students);
- research (producing cutting-edge scholarship and Ph.D.s); and
- service (encouraging students to give something back to their country).
“It is gratifying to be ranked highly according to criteria tied to Fordham’s mission,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of the University. “Doubly so in that it gives well-deserved recognition to our peerless Dorothy Day Center. We believe that academic achievement and service are strongly complementary; this ranking is confirmation of that belief.”
It was the latter category that earned Fordham a place in a recent Huffington Post photo essay, where the site lauded the Dorothy Day Center for Service and Justice.
The site noted that University volunteers work with a range of populations—from at-risk youth to the homebound elderly—and partners with several local organizations from Sprout, which helps people with special needs, and the International Rescue Committee, which gives refugee children the tools and support they need to thrive in new environments.
Overall, Fordham scored 61 out of a possible 100 points, a distinction it shared with Wake Forest University and Tufts University. Fordham is very competitive with other Jesuit and national universities in the rankings, not least because of its robust social justice and outreach programs.
The Washington Monthly rankings are intended as a counterbalance to college surveys such as U.S. News & World Report’s, in that it tries to measure not just value received by students for tuition dollars, but value received by the nation for its tax dollars.
