Linfield College Adult Degree Program Acclaimed by US News & World Report, Princeton Review and Washington Monthly

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Linfield is all about having a personalized education.

McMinnville, OR (PRWEB) September 30, 2013

Linfield College announces that its residential and accredited online degree programs have earned top rankings from the US News & World Report, the Washington Monthly and the Princeton Review. These reviews identify Linfield as one of the top liberal arts colleges in the nation, one of the few college providing proven high return on investment and one of the best colleges in the West, respectively.

The US News & World Report rated nearly 1,400 colleges for its 2014 Best Colleges Rankings. Linfield College scored as 123 out of all the nation’s liberal arts colleges. The report defines liberal arts colleges as institutions whose primary focus is undergraduate education and which provide at least half of their degrees in the arts and sciences. In Linfield’s ADP all students complete a liberal arts core of classes. This year’s rankings reflect a greater focus on students’ outcomes such as graduation and retention rates than rankings in previous years, which had a higher focus on incoming students’ statistics, such as standardized test scores. This focus on student success is of particular interest to Linfield’s practically-minded and future-focused adult degree students.

Linfield has earned a distinguished ranking of 51 in the Washington Monthly’s rating of liberal arts colleges where students gain the “Best Bang for the Buck.” Out of 1,572 institutions, only 349 met the strict requirements to be labeled best-bang-for-the-buck schools. Washington Monthly created this report in response to the question “Is a College Degree Still Worth It?” The schools on the list had to meet four strict criteria designed with lower income students in mind. First, to make the list, at least 20 percent of the school’s students must be receiving Pell Grants, federal funding for students with demonstrated financial need (27% of Linfield students receive Pell Grants). Secondly, schools on the list must have a graduation rate of at least 50% (Linfield’s graduation rate is 73%). Third, the school’s graduation rate must meet or exceed the statistically predicted graduation rate based on their proportion of low-income students. Finally, the school’s rate of student loan defaults must be 10% or lower (Linfield’s default rate is 2%). For students at Linfield and the other colleges that made it onto this list, the answer is yes, the college degree is worth it –particularly so for those from middle- and lower-income backgrounds. In all programs in the ADP, such as the RN to BSN, where the diverse student body includes many students from middle and lower-income backgrounds across all programs, the “bang-for-the-buck” honor is welcome, though not surprising, news.

The Princeton Review has selected Linfield College’s residential and online programs for their list of “2014 Best Colleges: Region by Region.” Linfield College is one of the top 124 colleges selected in the Western region. As Robert Franek, Princeton Review’s senior vice president, explains, “We chose these as our ‘regional best’ colleges mainly for their excellent academic programs.” To make this list, the school must demonstrate they provide a high standard of academic excellence, as Linfield demonstrated across its range of programs, which include an online accounting degree, business information systems degree and marketing degree. In addition, the rankings take into consideration current students’ survey responses, which is useful for prospective ADP students who can’t visit Linfield in person and ask current students questions on a campus tour. As Linfield students wrote on the survey, professors are “engaging, informative, and approachable” and “Linfield is all about having a personalized education.”

About Linfield College Adult Degree Program
Chartered in 1858, Linfield College is one of the first colleges in the Pacific Northwest and is regionally accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. The Adult Degree Program offers adults the opportunity to earn a bachelor’s degree or certificate in ten fields of study.

Online programs offered by Linfield College Adult Degree Program include an online management degree, business information systems degree, accounting degree, online marketing degree, RN to BSN degree and international business degree and certificates in post baccalaureate accounting, human resource management, computer information systems, and marketing.

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