Infographic by Betsy Burrow
Update: This article was updated on Oct. 1, 2025 to include quotes from Seaver Faculty Senate President Chris Doran.
Pepperdine University is ranked 84th in the 2026 edition of the U.S. News & World Report’s Best National Universities rankings, dropping four spots since last year’s edition. The national university rankings were released Sept. 23.
The U.S. News & World Report’s college rankings are a data-driven assessment of academic quality and graduate success that has guided millions of students and families in their college search, according to the U.S. News. When a university moves up or down two or three spots, that is insignificant, said Lee Kats, dean of Seaver College.
“Teaching undergraduates is our highest priority, and will always be,” Kats said.
Interpreting the Results
Pepperdine tied with the University of Illinois Chicago, Yeshiva University and Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, according to the U.S. News and World Report 2025-2026 rankings.
A rankings overhaul in the 2024 edition led to Pepperdine dropping 21 spots in the ranks, according to previous Graphic reporting. Since then, the U.S. News and World Report ranking methodology remained essentially unchanged this year, with the same factors and weights, according to the newspaper. In this new system, Pepperdine’s ranking has been on a consistent downward trend.
The collection of data points related to graduation rate is more highly weighted by U.S. News at around 21%. The guess is that this was likely the primary factor in the drop, Kats said.
Pepperdine’s average six-year graduation rate went down from 85% last year to 84%, according to U.S. News. In addition, the graduation rate of Pell Grant recipients — 5.5% of the ranking’s weight — dropped from 85% to 83%.
Pepperdine is an R2 University, despite research publication not being a primary priority, unlike an R1, where scholarly research is often unrelated to the learning objectives of undergraduates, Kats said. In contrast, the scholarship at Seaver is both related to and beneficial for students.
Pepperdine’s financial resources rank, which measures the proportion of total expenditures toward “functional” academic costs against student enrollment, dropped from 60 to 103.
“Class size used to be part of the metric — part of the formula — and it’s no longer part of the equation,” Kats said.
This metric has been absent from the rankings since 2023, according to previous Graphic reporting.
Additionally, Pepperdine dropped from 48 to 53 in the Best Colleges for Veterans ranking, from 74 to 103 in the Best Value Schools ranking, and from 75 to 77 in the Top Performers on Social Mobility ranking.
First-year retention, graduation rates and peer reputation are the factors that need to be emphasized to make Seaver a better college, Kats said. As dean, he wants to highlight those three factors.
Peer assessment, which makes up 20% of the ranking, measures how schools are regarded by top administrators at other institutions, according to U.S. News. The peer assessment rating, based on a 1 to 5 scale, is based on averaged data from a survey sent to administrators across the country that asks them to assess the overall academic quality of other institutions’ undergraduate programs. Pepperdine dropped from 3.5 to 3.4 last year, and remained at 3.4 this year.
Areas of Improvement
Pepperdine has improved its faculty-student ratio from 13:1 to 12:1 since last year. This statistic accounts for 3% of the weight. Also, Pepperdine rose from 45 to 39 in the Best Undergraduate Teaching ranking, according to U.S. News.
“If you’ve got really low numbers very near the bottom, or you’ve got very high numbers very near the top, it’s hard to get movement,” Kats said. “We’ve always had pretty good numbers around graduation rates and retention.”
Reactions
The Graphic spoke to several students about the drop in rankings.
“I still feel pretty secure,” said junior Isabella Pendleton, a pre-med Sports Medicine major. “Hopefully, it doesn’t drop anymore.”
Junior Jewelene Vash, a pre-med Nutritional Science major, said her choice may have been different had she known the rankings would drop.
Religion and Sustainability Professor Chris Doran, president of the Seaver Faculty Senate and Seaver Faculty Association, said he was disappointed that the University administration has yet to put together a panel or task force to address the continuous decline in rankings. The Seaver Faculty Senate works closely with Kats, according to previous Graphic reporting.
“That lack of urgency [from University administration] is really distressing to a significant chunk of our faculty, because we know there’s going to be real-world consequences from such a dramatic drop in the rankings,” Doran said.
Doran said faculty recruitment and enrollment — especially among international students — were among his concerns. He said he hopes Pepperdine ensures its marketing highlights its research opportunities, and he is confident Kats will do what he can within his power to address the rankings.
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