FLINT, Mich. – The recently released U.S. News & World Report’s Best Colleges 2021 rankings has identified Kettering University as No. 9 overall among more than 150 higher education institutions in the Midwest region, up four spots from last year’s report.

Nationally, Kettering ranked No. 17 as the best undergraduate engineering programs at schools without doctorate programs, and No. 12 for mechanical engineering programs. The electrical/electronic communications program and computer science program also were recognized in this year’s rankings.

The report, which has been released for the past 36 years, scores colleges based on 17 measures of academic quality such as graduation and retention rates, student-faculty ratio and average federal loan debt of graduates. This year’s report assesses 1,452 U.S. bachelor’s degree-granting colleges and universities, including 157 Midwest institutions.