UNLV has again reached the top spot in U.S. News & World Report’s annual listing of the nation’s most diverse universities for undergraduates.
The publication’s Campus Ethnic Diversity ranking, released today, identifies colleges where students are most likely to encounter undergraduates from racial or ethnic groups different from their own. UNLV placed in a four-way tie for first, with this year’s publication noting UNLV’s high percentage of Latinx students, which currently sits at approximately 32 percent. More than 65 percent of UNLV’s undergraduates identify as part of a racial or ethnic minority.
"At UNLV, our incredible student diversity is one of our biggest assets, as it brings multiple perspectives to classroom and policy discussions, research labs, co-curricular activities and community conversations,” said UNLV President Keith E. Whitfield. “In places where there’s more diversity, I believe there’s better learning. As one of the nation’s most diverse universities and one that continues to rise as a top public research university, we work hard every day to improve the social mobility of our graduates and to provide opportunities and support for all of our students, staff, and faculty.”
UNLV ranked second 2021 and fourth in 2020, after topping the category in 2018 and 2019. The university has ranked in the top ten since the rankings debuted more than a decade ago.
U.S. News pulled information from the 2020 fall semester for the 2022 ranking, calculating UNLV’s diversity index as .76 on a scale of 0.1 to 1.0. According to the publication, the closer an institution’s index is to 1.0, the more diverse its student population. UNLV, which also posted a .76 diversity index in the 2021 rankings, joins the University of Hawaii-Hilo, Stanford, and the University of San Francisco at the top of the 2022 list.
The listing considers the overall mix of Black, Latinx, Native American, Asian-American, Pacific Islander/Native Hawaiian, white and multiracial (two or more races) students. It does not include international students.
In 2015, UNLV became the first four-year institution in Nevada to reach a Latinx enrollment of 25 percent, meeting the U.S. Department of Education’s definition of an Hispanic Serving Institution. The university also meets Minority Serving Institution requirements as an Asian-American, Native-American Pacific-Islander-Serving Institution. More than a third of UNLV’s students are the first in their families to attend college.
US News “Best Colleges” Roundup
In other rankings news, UNLV’s School of Nursing placed 43rd in U.S. News’ debut category of best undergraduate nursing programs. This continues the nursing program’s strong showing in U.S. News rankings, as the school’s master’s and doctoral programs in Nursing rank 66 and 65 overall, respectively, and the school’s online master’s program ranks as the nation’s 7th best.
UNLV also cracked the top 100 in social mobility, which rates how well schools enroll and graduate students receiving Pell Grants.
U.S. News & World Report’s annual “Best Colleges” rankings were released at 12:01 a.m. on Sept. 13.
