University Times

Pitt has been ranked in a number of key institutional quality indicators reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Almanac Issue 2009-10, which ranks leading American colleges and universities in a range of categories.

• In the category Top Institutions in Federal Research-and-Development Expenditures for Science and Engineering, Pitt ranked 14th nationally, with $441.4 million. The rankings are based on fiscal year 2007 data supplied by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The Almanac lists the top 100 institutions in this category. Johns Hopkins University topped the list with $1.4 billion in federal R&D expenditures.

• In the category College and University Endowments Over $250 million, based on information supplied by the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO), Pitt is ranked 29th with $2.3 billion. Harvard topped the list with an endowment of $36.6 billion.

The category includes a column that shows how much market values of endowments changed during the 2008 fiscal year. In it, Pitt’s one-year change was +3.5 percent, a better performance than more than 80 percent of the 221 institutions in this category; nearly 60 percent of them had negative percentages in this column. (See Feb. 5 University Times.)

• In the category Largest Endowments per Student, based on information supplied by NACUBO, Pitt is ranked 41st  out of 60 institutions nationally in this year’s Almanac with $75,800 per student. Rockefeller University topped the list with an endowment of $9.8 million per student.

• In the category Top Institutions in Total Research-and-Development Expenditures for Science and Engineering based on NSF data, Pitt is ranked 19th among all U.S. universities in this year’s Almanac, with $558.6 million. Topping the list in this category was John Hopkins with $1.6 billion. The Almanac lists the top 50 institutions.

• In the category Library Investment Index at University Research Libraries, based on information drawn from the Association of Research Libraries, Pitt is ranked No. 30 among 113 North American  universities ranked. Harvard is ranked No. 1 in this category.

According to the Almanac, “The ARL Library Investment Index takes into account total library expenditures, salaries of professional staff members, spending on library materials and the number of professional and support staff members. It is a summary measure of the relative size among university libraries belonging to the association.”

The rankings are available at http://chronicle.com/section/Almanac-of-Higher-Education/141/.

—Peter Hart