According to a new list of the overall best colleges in the country, Kansas University ranks No. 1 in the state and 290th out of 1,393 schools nationwide.

So says College Factual, which ranked schools based on four-year undergraduate programs. USA Today College reports the list came out Thursday. A few KU factoids from the College Factual report:

• The average in-state undergrad pays $20,120 per year to attend KU, including room and board. (College Factual gives this thumbs up and a “Best” as far as value for your money.)

• KU’s student to faculty ratio is 18:1, and 76 percent of teachers are full time.

• Graduates’ average starting salary is $40,000.

• 73 percent of KU students are from Kansas.

When it comes to rankings, KU prefers to compare itself with other public universities. Basically, they’re more apples to apples — and of course KU will pretty much always rank higher overall with private schools out of the mix. Case in point: With the exception of three U.S. military academies, University of California-Los Angeles (No. 47) and University of Virginia (No. 48), are the only public schools in College Factual’s top 50.

College Factual says: “This list compares the quality of education you can expect to receive at a given college, compared to all others on the list, regardless of whether the institution is designated a research university or a liberal arts college. It’s truly a nationwide list, designed to show how any one school stacks up against another.”

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The College Factual website doesn’t enable a sort by private v. public, but here are a handful of overall rankings for neighboring state schools I looked up.

• Colorado — 210

• Oklahoma — 267

• Nebraska — 322

• Missouri — 345

• K-State — 391 (second in Kansas)

• Oklahoma State — 470

And finally, in case you were wondering, the No. 1 school in the country according to College Factual is Yale, and the entire Top 10 is Ivy League-loaded. Following Yale, in order, are Pennsylvania, Duke, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Brown, MIT, Notre Dame and Dartmouth College.

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Footnotes

• A mini-ranking for you: The KU Career Center recently got word that it was ranked 18th overall on JobBrander.com’s list of Top 25 College Career Centers on Social Media in 2015. (When sharing this information with me, Career Center executive director David Gaston did point out that compared to other public schools on the list, he believes KU would be second.)

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Contact me

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