Kansas University is slipping in its quest to become a top-25 public university, according to U.S. News and World Report rankings released today.

KU dropped three spots, from 41st to 44th, in the magazine’s “America’s Best Colleges” edition, which hits newsstands Monday.

Chancellor Robert Hemenway said he wasn’t surprised KU dropped in stature, because 30 percent of a school’s ranking is based on financial resources and KU has suffered severe budget cuts in recent years.

“We can’t make that top 25 without getting more state support,” Hemenway said. “We’ve got almost all the other ingredients in place.”

The U.S. News and World Report rankings are generally seen as the most prominent college rankings in the nation. The magazine uses factors such as graduation and retention rates and faculty resources to determine rankings.

Hemenway has said the magazine’s ranking was one of several ways to measure progress toward his goal of KU being a top-25 university by 2010.

Struggle for resources

KU has fallen from 30th place among public universities since 1998, when the magazine first separated public and private schools.

This was the first year U.S. News ranked all universities — public and private — below the top 50, instead of simply listing them by tier. KU ranked 90th in that comprehensive list.

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For the fourth consecutive year, Princeton University topped the overall rankings. This year, Princeton tied with Harvard as the nation’s best university. The University of California-Berkeley and the University of Virginia tied as the top-rated public schools.

Hemenway said budget cuts were one reason KU and the other five Big 12 schools in the top-50 public schools dropped in rankings this year.

“We don’t have the resources that even some other public universities do,” he said. “That’s the thing we struggle with most. We’re hoping the state can find a way to better fund higher education.”

A study released this summer showed that Kansas ranked second-to-last among states with Big 12 universities when it comes to per-student funding of higher education.

The University of Colorado — the only state contributing less than Kansas — is ranked higher than KU by U.S. News and World Report. But Colorado draws more out-of-state students than Kansas, although CU’s nonresident tuition rate is about $4,000 higher per semester.

Hemenway said KU again would ask the state to provide a 2 percent increase in funding in addition to an inflationary increase. That, in addition to tuition increases, would put KU in the top 25, he said.

“We believe we can make that goal,” he said. “It’s got to be a partnership.”

Goal still within reach

The “student selectivity” category — which amounts to 15 percent of the U.S. News rankings — also hurts KU, Hemenway said. Even with the qualified admissions law that went into effect several years ago, the state’s standards for who public universities must admit are low, he said.

Despite this year’s drop, Hemenway said KU could reach the top 25.

“We’re where we should be,” he said. “We’re in that second tier of institutions. We’re close enough to our top-25 goal we can look at things we need to do to get on that list.”

Those include improving student retention and graduation rates, he said.

Hemenway also pointed to another set of university rankings recent released — the Fiske Guide to Colleges — to show KU’s success. In its 2004 guide, Fiske again called KU one of its 22 “best buys” among public universities.

“With solid academics, outstanding extracurricular programs, winning athletics and a stellar social life, the University of Kansas is one of higher education’s best buys,” the editors wrote.

Janice DeBauge, chairwoman of the Kansas Board of Regents, said she wasn’t sure how to interpret the U.S. News rankings.

“It’s very difficult to assess rankings,” she said. “We do know that the University of Kansas is funded significantly lower than its peers, both in the Big 12 and among public universities. … I think the funding for higher education in Kansas is cause for alarm, whether it’s reflected in U.S. News and World Report or in larger classes or in the loss of faculty — wherever it’s reflected.”

She said she thought KU should continue to strive to be in the top 25.

“I respect the chancellor’s goal,” she said. “I think he’s set very high standards for the University of Kansas, and I think that’s important.”