Bethel Earns High Rank­ings

Bethel Uni­ver­sity is listed on Money Mag­a­zine’s, “Best Col­leges for Your Money” and is rec­og­nized as a Col­lege of Dis­tinc­tion for the year 2020. Each of these recog­ni­tions comes with dif­fer­ent method­olo­gies for choos­ing the schools that make the list.  

Money Mag­a­zine weighs col­leges in three ar­eas: qual­ity of ed­u­ca­tion, af­ford­abil­ity and out­come. When ex­am­in­ing the qual­ity of ed­u­ca­tion at a col­lege, Money con­sid­ers grad­u­a­tion rate, peer and in­struc­tor qual­ity, fi­nan­cial trou­bles and Pell Grant re­cip­i­ents. Af­ford­abil­ity is judged in ar­eas such as net price of a de­gree, debt and abil­ity to re­pay debt. The cri­te­ria for out­come in­clude grad­u­ates’ earn­ings, em­ploy­ment out­comes and value-added earn­ings.  

Bethel was ranked No. 12 of the In­di­ana col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties on Mon­ey’s list for 2020. Lists such as this one help par­ents and up­com­ing fresh­men or trans­fer­ring stu­dents de­cide on a col­lege that will be both af­ford­able and en­sure a pro­duc­tive ed­u­ca­tion.  

“The pub­li­ca­tions that cre­ate these rank­ings com­pete to pro­vide rank­ings that they think will be valu­able to prospec­tive stu­dents,” Erin Kinzel, the com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ist for Bethel Uni­ver­sity, said. 

To be con­sid­ered a Col­lege of Dis­tinc­tion, a col­lege must ex­cel in the Four Dis­tinc­tions: en­gaged stu­dents, great teach­ing, vi­brant com­mu­ni­ties and suc­cess­ful out­comes. Bethel is one of 10 In­di­ana col­leges to be rec­og­nized as a Col­lege of Dis­tinc­tion and one of 62 col­leges na­tion­wide to be rec­og­nized for Chris­t­ian Col­lege of Dis­tinc­tion.  

The Four Dis­tinc­tions fo­cus mainly on the stu­dents’ col­lege ex­pe­ri­ence. Col­leges that are named Col­leges of Dis­tinc­tion sup­ply stu­dents with var­ied teach­ing styles, as well as ac­tiv­i­ties and op­por­tu­ni­ties with in­tern­ships or study abroad. A Col­lege of Dis­tinc­tion hosts many events in or­der to pro­vide stu­dents with op­por­tu­ni­ties to meet peo­ple, and it aids the stu­dent tran­si­tion­ing from col­lege to a ca­reer.  

These two recog­ni­tions are the only ones that have been pub­lished so far this fall.  

“[This] is usu­ally when high school stu­dents and par­ents are be­gin­ning to search out in­for­ma­tion about col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties,” Kinzel said.  

Kinzel also shared that Bethel has been in both of these rank­ings for sev­eral years or more.  

There are more rank­ings to be re­leased this week, such as the re­sults for the an­nual US News and Wash­ing­ton Monthly.