An influential think tank ranked the University of Florida as the top school in the nation, public or private, a recognition amplified in a Wall Street Journal editorial this week.
The piece, “The University Elite, Reconsidered,” highlighted rankings created by the policy publication City Journal that evaluated 100 leading universities on 68 factors, including tolerance for free speech, ideological pluralism, employment, campus vibrancy.
While traditional blue bloods like Harvard and Berkeley were conspicuously absent from the top ten, the ascendant Gainesville school finished first, besting the University of Texas at Austin and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which finished second and third respectively.
Florida earned a four-star rating, one of only two schools to do so.
“The rankings also look closely at the strength of the general curriculum and whether the university is providing excellence or coasting on a fancy reputation,” the Journal’s editorial board wrote.
Florida State also earned a high ranking, slotting in at #7 — 30 spots ahead of Harvard and 11 spots ahead of Stanford.
“This recognition for UF is something we should all be proud of,” UF Board of Trustees Chair Mori Hosseini and UF Interim President Donald Landry said in a press release. “It demonstrates that at the University of Florida, we have anticipated the re-thinking of the true value of a university education and have invested strategically in our programs and in our culture to seize this moment of opportunity,”
The Wall Street Journal noted that the ranking system “offers a fresh lens on higher education,” highlighting schools that prioritize intellectual growth and civic engagement “rather than simply prestige or selectivity.”
It added that schools which “demonstrated ideological pluralism among the faculty received higher marks. Same for a vibrant and inclusive campus social life. Student tolerance for controversial speakers was another plus.”
There was no mention of the current state of Florida’s football program.
