U.S. News & World Report ranks the program among the top five in its annual America's Best Colleges survey. The 2001 edition of "America's Best Colleges" is available at www.usnews.com/usnews/edu.

The magazine annually surveys higher education officials to rank the nation's 1,600 accredited colleges and universities. It uses the information to assist students and their parents in selecting a four-year school.

Overall, Ball State was placed in the magazine's third tier of national colleges and universities. The tier consists of schools ranked from 116th to 171st. Also, Ball State's College of Business was ranked in the top third of all U.S. business schools.

"For the entrepreneurship program to be consistently ranked among the nation's best says a great deal about its national reputation," said Neil Palomba, dean of the College of Business. "Without a doubt, the entrepreneurship program has raised the standard of excellence for the entire college and enhanced the university's reputation."

Babson College, University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern California and Baylor University were ranked as the top four entrepreneurship schools. Ball State was tied with New York University and the University of Texas at Austin for fifth place. Indiana University's Kelley School of Business was the only other state university with an entrepreneurship program ranked, receiving a 10^th place selection.

The magazine identified programs accredited by the International Association for Management Education and surveyed deans and senior faculty to rate the quality of entrepreneurship programs.

The magazine divides the higher education landscape into four categories: national universities, national liberal arts colleges, regional universities and regional liberal arts colleges. Ball State is one of the 228 national universities evaulated.

U.S. News & World Report uses seven factors to evaluate 228 national universities: academic reputation, graduation and retention, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources, graduation-rate performance and alumni giving.

The magazine then assigns a weight to each factor to determine its influence on the rankings, further breaking the list into four tiers.

MAC schools joining Ball State in the third tier of national universities include Bowling Green and Western Michigan. MAC rivals Miami and Ohio universities were ranked in the second tier as well as in-state schools Indiana University-Bloomington and Purdue University-West Lafayette.

In the magazine's ranking of the nation's business schools, developed in a survey of business school deans and senior faculty, the only other Mid-American Conference member ahead of Ball State was Miami University. Bowling Green was tied with Ball State at 107th with Kent State and Northern Illinois tied at 134th place.

By Marc Ransford, Communications Manager

(NOTE TO EDITORS: For more information, contact Palomba by e-mail at npalomba@bsu.edu or by phone at (765) 285-8192. Kuratko may be reached by e-mail at dkuratko@bsu.eduor by phone at (765)285-5327.)