Founded in 1858, Winona State University is a comprehensive, regional public university with nearly 8,900 students. The oldest member of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System, WSU offers more than 80 undergraduate, pre-professional, licensure, graduate and doctorate programs on its three campuses in Winona and Rochester.
Winona State ranks as the second public institution in Minnesota in the 2012 edition of U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Colleges” and is the highest-ranked institution in the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system. U.S. News & World Report ranks more than 1,600 schools nationwide, comparing accredited four-year schools on a set of up to 16 widely accepted indicators of excellence, including peer assessment, graduation and retention rates, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources, and alumni giving.
Winona State also has been named among the “Best in the Midwest” for eight consecutive years by The Princeton Review, a nationally known education service company. The rankings are based on student opinion data from schools across the nation. According to the Princeton Review, 629 colleges from the Midwest, Northeast, West and Southeast were named “regional bests,” representing only about 25 percent of the nation’s 2,500 four-year colleges.
Winona State is also recognized as one of the country’s most environmentally responsible colleges by The Princeton Review. In partnership with the U.S. Green Building Council, the Princeton Review has annually ranked institutions of higher education that have demonstrated an above average commitment to sustainability in terms of campus infrastructure, activities and initiatives. Winona State received this designation in both 2010 and 2011.
Winona State has been featured as one of America’s 100 Best College Buys for quality and value for 16 consecutive years. The publication is an independent ranking of the value and quality of colleges and universities across the nation, conducted by Institutional Research and Evaluation of Rome, Ga. The report profiles the schools that are the highest rated academically, but also have the greatest value as a function of academic quality, cost of attendance and financial aid available.
The safety of Winona State’s campuses has also received national recognition, ranking 11th among the safest campuses in the U.S. in 2009 and 18th on a 2010 list, according to “The Daily Beast.” Data compared colleges and universities nationwide that have a minimum enrollment of 6,000 students and have students living on campus. Statistics about crime on and near campus were culled from data reported annually to the U.S. Department of Education under the federal Clery Act.
Finally, Winona State University stays true to its mission to enhance the intellectual, social, cultural and economic vitality of the people and communities it serves: a community of learners improving our world. The university has been named four years in a row to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll by the Corporation for National and Community Service. The designation recognizes Winona State for its commitment to service and civic engagement, selecting honorees based on a series of criteria including scope and innovation of service projects, percentage of student participation in service activities, incentives for service, and the extent to which the school offers academic service-learning courses.
For more information, visit the Winona State website.
