Truman Earns National Ranking for Quality and Success

After a massive reclassification by U.S. News & World Report, Truman is now compared with schools in a highly competitive national category.

For this year’s ranking, U.S. News modified its framework for grouping colleges, a change motivated by the American Council on Education’s release of the 2025 Carnegie Classification system. 

Previously, the Carnegie Classification placed colleges and universities into groups based on the highest degree awarded. Now, schools receive a classification based on multiple labels to help group institutions by more characteristics, such as size, location and the types of academic programs offered, in addition to a more robust degree and certificate profile.

For more than three decades, Truman’s Carnegie Classification was based on a master’s degree being the highest awarded by the University. While Truman has expanded its master’s degree offerings in recent years, the University primarily focuses on undergraduate programs, with more than half of graduates receiving degrees in the sciences or arts. Under the new Carnegie Classification, those factors put Truman in a national category with other schools that also have a special focus on arts and sciences. Truman was previously compared alongside peer institutions in the Midwest region only.

In this year’s U.S. News Best College Rankings, Truman is recognized as the No. 12 public liberal arts university in the nation. 

The service academies top the public schools in Truman’s new category, with the Navy, Army and Air Force taking the first three spots, respectively. Truman was the only university from Missouri or the neighboring eight states to make the top 25 of public schools in its new category. 

Truman had come to dominate the previous regional rankings, placing as the No. 1 school in the Midwest region for 29 years in a row. While the new classification keeps the University from celebrating a milestone anniversary, it proves Truman more than holds its own when measured against a deep pool of national peers. 

U.S. News also recognized Truman on its list of Top Performers on Social Mobility, and four of the University’s academic programs – business, computer science, nursing and psychology – again earned inclusion on rankings of their respective disciplines. The entire Best Colleges rankings can be found online at usnews.com/best-colleges.  

The 2027 edition of the U.S. News Best Colleges rankings evaluates more than 1,700 colleges and universities, using up to 17 factors to measure academic quality and graduate success.