photo by: Nick Krug

An aerial photo of Kansas University’s campus as it looks in August 2015.

The University of Kansas fell a few notches in this year’s U.S. News and World Report rankings of the nation’s best colleges.

KU is ranked 118th overall among national universities, down three places from last year’s list. And it fell one notch, in a tie for 56th place, among public universities in the nation.

“Rankings, although important, are just one factor we use to measure our success,” KU Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little said in a news release Tuesday. “We track how our performance compares to our peers’ while focusing on additional priorities, which include student retention and graduation rates and increasing our freshmen and overall enrollment.”

For KU, however, the 2017 list marked the third straight year of declining rankings. KU was ranked 101st in 2014, but fell to 106th in 2015 and to 115th in 2016.

Within specific academic programs, KU fell five spots, into a tie for 75th overall for undergraduate engineering programs at public universities that also offer engineering doctoral degrees. Among public schools in that category, it slipped four spots, to 44th.

And KU fell two spots, to 63rd overall and 41st among public universities, for undergraduate business programs at public universities.

KU officials noted, however, that the university climbed three spots, to 40th place, among public universities in the Best Colleges for Veterans category.

U.S. News issues rankings each year for more than 1,800 colleges and universities in the U.S. The magazine said it bases those rankings on up to 15 measures of academic quality, starting with graduation and retention rates, which account for 30 percent of the overall grade.

In the 2017 edition, Princeton University again led the list of best national universities, and the University of California-Berkeley once again topped the list of public universities.

Elsewhere in the Great Plains, the University of Missouri, University of Oklahoma and University of Nebraska all tied with four other schools at 111th overall and 51st among public universities. And those three were in a five-way tie, along with Iowa State University and the University of Utah, for 51st place among public universities.

The University of Colorado-Boulder came in 92nd overall and 38th among public schools.

Kansas State University placed 135th overall and 64th among public schools.

The news of KU slipping in the U.S. News rankings may not be well received in the Statehouse, where Gov. Sam Brownback and legislative leaders have strongly urged state universities to improve their rankings and their national profiles.

Brownback, however, did not immediately respond to the new rankings when asked about them during an impromptu conversation with reporters in the Statehouse, saying he had not yet seen the report.

In a statement released in response to the rankings, KU said it has several initiatives in place that it hopes will boost future rankings. It noted that this year’s freshman class is the first to be admitted under new procedures aimed at helping students be more prepared to enter college.

Officials said there are other initiatives underway aimed at helping improve student retention and graduation rates.

“We know it can take time to have these rankings reflect our work to advance KU,” KU Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Neeli Bendapudi said in a news release. “We are making progress with new student support structures and people in place that enrich the student experience and ensure even more students succeed.”

For the full list of rankings, see the U.S. News and World Report website.

Correction: This article originally misrepresented the recent decline of KU’s ranking. It has dropped for three years straight, from 101st in 2014, to 106th in 2015, to 115th in 2016, to 118th in 2017.