University Of North Dakota Panned By Princeton Review

According to new rankings out from the Princeton Review, the University of North Dakota won some dubious honors.

The campus is ranked 14th in the nation in the Least Beautiful Campuses category, 11th in the nation in Least Happy Students, 5th in the nation in Professors Get Low Marks and 2nd in the nation in Students Study the Least.

To be fair, UND is also ranked among the Best Midwestern Colleges and among on the Best 377 Colleges list, but there’s no indication as to where UND ranks on those lists. Being the 376th best college in the United States isn’t exactly a big honor.

As for the state’s other “flagship” university, NDSU wasn’t even ranked.

Keep in mind that UND is one of the largest institutions in the state’s $1.2 billion university system. More than half – 57% – of the students at UND aren’t from North Dakota, something more than likely has to do with the millions in tuition waivers UND hands out every year.

I’m sure this ranking will be quickly dismissed by the state’s university officials, and panned by the state’s editorialists who can’t ever seem to find much of anything negative to report about the universities, but it’s worth remembering that UND and NDSU are big fish in a small pond. Their performance, as measured by how well they service students, frankly isn’t that great.