The U.S. News & World Report has released its ranking of universities for 2021, and Nicholls State University is ranked as the number one public regional university in Louisiana.

According to the U.S. News & World Report, a public university is funded by tax dollars and operated under the supervision of the state government. A regional university is a university that offers various undergraduate degrees, a handful of master’s degrees and very few doctoral programs. 

To get the ranking of each university, the U.S. News & World Report looks at a number of things, some being graduation rates, financial resources and social mobility. 

A couple new factors were added in this year. These factors include measuring student debt and increasing the weight of scores factoring students outcomes. After all of these calculations are completed, the universities who make the top 75 percent get published.

This is the third year in a row that the university has been ranked at the top. Per the report, Nicholls also ranks 35 among the top public regional universities in the South, up three positions from last year. 

When including private universities, Nicholls ranks 80th (up four positions) thus making us second best in the entire state. Nicholls has also been ranked among the top southern regional universities for social mobility in the South, that ranking being 104.