U.S. News & World Report Names Regent University a “Best National University” for the Seventh Year
VIRGINIA BEACH, VA (September 23, 2025) – Regent University has been named a “Best National University” by U.S. News & World Report on its 2026 Best Colleges Rankings, which assessed over 1,600 U.S. bachelor’s degree-granting institutions.
Regent stands alongside universities like Princeton, MIT, Harvard, Stanford, and Yale within the Best National Universities ranking. Regent received a similar recognition from U.S. News for 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, and now 2026.
“We at Regent University are deeply honored to be recognized by U.S. News & World Report alongside some of the most prestigious colleges in the nation,” said Dr. William L. Hathaway, Regent University Provost. “Being ranked year after year is an encouraging reflection of the unwavering quality of our educators, students, and entire community.”
U.S. News ranked Regent University in three categories:
Best National Universities (#373)
Regent was distinguished in the 2026 National Universities rankings with an overall ranking of #373. U.S. News assessed 434 U.S. bachelor’s degree-granting institutions for the National Universities category and over 1,700 institutions across all categories.
A total of 17 key measures of academic quality were utilized to calculate the rankings. The measures of academic quality include the following:
- Graduation rates
- First-year retention rates
- Graduation rate performance
- Pell graduation rates
- Pell graduation performance
- Borrower debt
- College grads earning more than a high school grad
- Peer assessment
- Faculty salaries
- Student-faculty ratio
- Full-time faculty
- Financial resources per student
- Standardized tests
- Citations per publication
- Field weighted citation impact
- Publication cited in top 5% of journals
- Publication cited in top 25% of journals
Best Undergraduate Psychology Programs (#526)
This ranking was determined by a peer assessment of deans and faculty members of undergraduate psychology departments throughout the United States who rated the academic quality of peer institutions’ psychology programs. A total of 682 programs were included.
Top Performers on Social Mobility Among National Universities (#144)
The social mobility ranking measures the extent to which schools enroll and graduate students who receive federal Pell grants. A total of 433 schools were included, placing Regent in the top 33% of schools rated.
For a complete list of this year’s rankings, please visit www.usnews.com/colleges.
About Regent University
Founded in 1977, Regent University is America’s premier Christian university, with more than 13,000 students studying on its 70-acre campus in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and online around the world. The university offers associate, bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in more than 150 areas of study, including business, communication and the arts, counseling, cybersecurity, divinity, education, government, law, leadership, nursing, healthcare, and psychology. Regent University has been ranked the #1 Best Accredited Online College in the United States (Study.com, 2020), the #1 Safest College Campus in Virginia (YourLocalSecurity, 2021), and the #1 Best Online Bachelor’s Program in Virginia for 13 years in a row (U.S. News & World Report, 2025).
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