University of Portland Ranked #1 Private School in the West by U.S. News & World Report

U.S. News & World Report’s 2025 Best College rankings confirm what The Wall Street Journal and Forbes proclaimed earlier this month — University of Portland (UP) is a leader among peer institutions in the Western United States. 

In bestowing a #2 overall ranking among 115 ‘Regional Universities – West,’ U.S. News & World Report once again recognized UP as the region’s top private university. In addition to ranking within the region’s top three for the sixth consecutive year, UP has now cracked the top-10 in the U.S. News’ Best in the West rankings for 30 consecutive years.

University of Portland President Robert D. Kelly, PhD“We are thrilled that U.S. News & World Report has once again recognized the exceptional quality of a University of Portland education,” said President Robert D. Kelly, PhD. “From our best-in-state graduation rate, to our exceptional career and graduate school outcomes, to our outstanding student satisfaction scores, UP’s superb Catholic, Holy Cross education is having a transformational impact on the lives of our students.”

Annually, U.S. News & World Report evaluates nearly 1,500 national colleges and universities on up to 17 measures of academic quality. U.S. News’ 2025 University of Portland rankings overview measures overall value, academics, student diversity, campus life, and median starting salary of alumni.

Among Regional Universities – West, U.S. News & World Report also ranked UP #2 for Undergraduate Teaching Programs. And months after opening the Shiley-Marcos Center for Design & Innovation on campus, UP’s Donald P. Shiley School of Engineering earned a #44 ranking among the nation’s Best Undergraduate Engineering programs. This recognition adds to the university’s ongoing accolades as a top-tier university, including:

• The Wall Street Journal ranked UP 71st nationally — #1 among all colleges and universities in the Pacific Northwest — in its 2025 Best Colleges in the U.S. Rankings, which are based on impactful student and graduate outcomes, a robust learning environment and campus-wide diversity.
• Forbes ranked UP as the #1 private university in the Pacific Northwest ­— and 133rd among all institutions in the nation — on its 2024-25 list of America’s Top 500 Colleges.
• The University earned a 4.5-star rating in Money magazine’s summer list of ‘The Best Colleges in America’ — which lists UP among the nation’s premier colleges and universities in quality of education, affordability and student outcomes.
• The Princeton Review named UP to its list of ‘The Best 390 Colleges – 2025,’ relying on student survey data to share the following about UP academics: Students can't stop raving about the quality of professors at the University of Portland: “phenomenal-no question about it." 

In the fall 2024 semester, UP enrolled more than 800 new students as part of a total enrollment of more than 3,200 undergraduate and graduate students.