Rockhurst University Is Named No. 6 Midwest Regional University by U.S. News and World Report

A year after Rockhurst University cracked the top 10 on the list of Midwest Regional Universities by U.S. News and World Report, the institution is once again moving up – this time claiming the top spot in the state on that list, among other honors.
Rockhurst University comes in at No. 6 on this year’s rankings, part of the 2026 Best Colleges list released today. It’s the University’s highest-ever spot on the list and is the highest-ranked Missouri institution on that list. The news comes a year after the University jumped six spots on the Best Midwest Regional Universities list between the 2024 and 2025 editions to enter the top 10.

“I encourage faculty, staff, students and alumni to celebrate this accomplishment,” said Sandra Cassady, Ph.D., University president. “It is a testament to the quality of our education at Rockhurst that we keep moving up in these rankings, and earning the top spot in the state among regional universities is further proof that Rockhurst continues to impress peers and provide additional value for our graduates’ degrees year after year.”
 

The University improved in areas such as peer assessment rank, graduation rate performance and Pell grant graduation rates. 
 

It’s also not the only ranking the University earned from U.S. News and World Report.
 

Three undergraduate business programs earned national rankings, with the University’s undergraduate management and analytics programs placing in the top 25 among all peers nationally, at No. 18 and No. 24, respectively. The University’s marketing program also appears on the list of best undergraduate programs in the country at No. 32.

“We built our name on our graduate programs, but our undergraduate students learn from the same attentive faculty, have a similar Jesuit values-based curriculum and also get to test their learning with real-world applications,” said Myles Gartland, Ph.D., dean of the College of Business and Technology and associate vice president for strategy and innovation. “It’s all about forming leaders of conscience and confidence, and we continue to do that at all levels.”
 

Rockhurst also earned two new rankings — No. 11 among Midwest regional universities for the quality of its undergraduate teaching, and No. 2 on the list of best universities in the Midwest for veterans. The University also moved up more than 30 spots on the list of best universities for social mobility in the Midwest and remained No. 6 on the list of most innovative universities in the Midwest.
 

“We try to present all of the information when we talk to prospective students and families,” said Mark Steinlage, vice president for enrollment management. “Rankings like this do not tell the whole story, but they speak volumes about our standing among other institutions, the caliber of our academics and our commitment to truly serve students from enrollment through graduation and beyond.”