WSJ Rankings: Florida Tech a National Leader in Student Experience

MELBOURNE, FLA. — Florida Tech students know that Panther Dining Hall rocks. They know the tranquility of the botanical garden. They benefit from the school’s efforts to provide a safe, supportive campus life and to be sustainable while doing so. And in their peers and classmates, their residence hall roomies and study group partners, they understand the value of diversity.

This is the experience Florida Tech students know. Now the nation will know, too.

In just-released 2024 college rankings from the Wall Street Journal, the student experience at Florida Tech is ranked 6^th in the country among the 400 included universities. It is the best showing among all Florida universities on the list and the second-highest ranking for all 196 private schools included in the rankings.

As previous rankings from U.S. News & World Report and Niche.com highlight, Florida Tech’s overall excellence was again confirmed as the school made the list of the top 400 schools in the U.S. in the Journal’s overall Best Colleges rankings.

What makes the student experience category such a telling measurement is that it is not solely the product of algorithms and hard data. The Journal, working with the college-focused survey and research company College Pulse, commissioned one of the largest-ever independent surveys of verified college students and recent alumni in the U.S. More than 60,000 students and recent graduates were surveyed, and the results captured a range of perspectives on student life, including students’ perception of learning opportunities, career preparation, dining halls and sports facilities, and the students’ thoughts on diversity.

Those comprise the three main components of the student experience score, according to the Journal:

• Campus facilities (33% of score): Student satisfaction with the facilities available on campus, including those relating to food, housing and extracurricular activities.
• Community and social life (33%): Student satisfaction with the sense of community, emotional-health and mental-health support, sustainability, safety on campus, and party scene.
• Diversity (33%): A combination of diversity in terms of ethnicity, inclusion of students with lower family incomes, inclusion of students with disabilities, and international diversity, all based on government data, together with the quality and frequency of opportunities to interact with students from different backgrounds.

“At Florida Tech, we graduate students who have not only the skills and knowledge to excel in the workplace but also the rich, formative experiences to excel in life,” said Florida Tech President John Nicklow. “I am pleased that others are discovering what our more than 60,000 alumni know so well: A Florida Tech education is unique, powerful and so much more than just a degree.”