While last year, Florida Tech came in at 177 for national university rankings, according to ratings released a few weeks ago from U.S. News, Florida Tech has dropped to 202.
Although some may be concerned about the 25 spot decrease, it didn’t seem to bother Wes Sumner, Florida Tech’s vice president for Marketing and Communications.
Sumner explained that many considerations are taken into account, such as the academic performance of freshmen, alumni donations, class size and a number of other factors.
However, Sumner also explained that the biggest reason Florida Tech dropped in the rankings was due to something called the Carnegie Classification system.
This system acts as a framework for classifying universities throughout the nation.
“The Carnegie Classification changed and allowed a large number of additional universities in at our Carnegie Classification,” Sumner said. “This means that the new universities got added ahead of Florida Tech, meaning that our relative ranking fell.”
Despite this year’s rankings, Sumner stated that the university as a whole remained constant, or even improved in all of the ranking factors, and still remains a tier one best school for over a decade.
Students such as Riley Dolan, a sophomore in mechanical engineering, believe that smaller classes, high quality professors and job opportunities in the local area have helped contribute to that title.
“When I first started looking at colleges, I was trying to find a university where I can not only be successful in school, but find success quickly once I graduate,” Dolan said. “Florida Tech is known for their engineering programs, and companies like Harris and Northorp Gruman are always looking for interns as well as new engineers.”
Dolan went on to say that most other universities in the state don’t offer the same amount of quality or opportunities that a smaller tech university can offer to their students.
Jordan Neely, a junior in civil engineering, also said that the class size and the technology that is accessible through the university is what causes Florida Tech to be viewed as a tier one school.
“I don’t think that many other universities have the ability to offer the high availability of technology that Florida Tech can offer to their students,” Neely said.
Neely went on to explain that while other universities may have the same technology capabilities of Florida Tech, they often have a larger student body, which could make accessing those capabilities more difficult.
Sumner stated that one of the university’s core values is a lifetime commitment to student success, and despite what the rankings may say students such as Dolan and Neely feel like that value is being maintained.