Nicholls was recognized among the top 100 Southern Regional Universities by U.S. News and World Report Magazine last Thursday for the first time.

U.S. News and World Report is a leading magazine known for its ranking of America’s leading hospitals, colleges and many more.

Nicholls was ranked 89th among the Southern Regional Universities, and 49th in Southern Regional Public Universities, tying with four other public universities.

Regional schools “offer a broad scope of undergraduate degrees and some master’s programs but few, if any, doctoral programs,” according to the study. Other rankings include national universities, national liberal arts colleges and regional colleges.

To compile the list, U.S. News sends qualifying schools a statistical survey for completion. This year, 92 percent of all of the 1,378 ranked schools responded, according to the report. The statistical information for schools that do not reply is obtained from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics.

Allayne Barrilleaux, vice president for academic affairs, said they were “totally pleased.”

“I’ve heard that a lot of these places that do rankings do it on a basis that you advertise with them,” Barrilleaux said. “We don’t advertise. We don’t have the money for it, so we were totally surprised.”

The study looked at 134 schools in the region and ranked them on “assessment by administrators at peer institutions, retention of students, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources and alumni giving,” according to the U.S. News Web site.

The academic peer assessment survey accounts for 25 percent of the rank, retention for 25 percent, faculty resources for 20 percent, student selectivity for 15 percent, financial resources for 10 percent and alumni giving for five percent.

The final scores were calculated and rescaled so that the top school in each category received a 100, and the other scores were calculated as a proportion to that score. Scores were rounded to the nearest whole number, according to the report. Nicholls received a score of 32.

U.S. News released Nicholls’ statistical information, and other ranked schools’ information, along with the report. The information is recorded from the 2010-2011 school year.

This information states that Nicholls is a selective public university with a 78 percent acceptance rate for 2010. It also states that Nicholls freshman retention rate is 67.2 percent, considered average in the report, and its four-year graduation rate is 12 percent, which is considered low.

Nicholls is reported to have a 23 to 1 student to faculty ratio, and 37.7 percent of its classes have fewer than 20 students.

Nicholls’ most popular majors include nursing, business, liberal arts, general studies, education and engineering, according to the report.

Nicholls’ 6,404 reported students for the 2010-2011 year are 37.1 percent male and 62.9 percent female. Twenty-one percent of students live in college-affiliated housing and 79 percent live off campus. Ninety-five percent of students have cars on campus.

About half of Nicholls’ reported full-time undergraduates, 48.9 percent, received financial aid. The reported in-state tuition and fees cost for the 2010-2011 year is about $4,819 for the year, and the out-of-state tuition and fees cost is reported as $10,267 for the year.

For more information about the U.S. News and World Report magazine and its top rankings, visit www.usnews.com.