Bethel College appears in the annual “Best Colleges” issue published by U.S. News & World Report at #25 in Best Regional College Midwest.
This group of schools awards mostly bachelor’s degrees. The 89 institutions on the list are located in the 12-state region that covers Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
Bethel appears at #23 for both “Best Value Schools” and “Top Performers on Social Mobility.”
“Best Value Schools” are chosen based on a calculation that takes into account a school’s academic quality (as indicated by its 2026 U.S. News Best Colleges ranking) and the 2024-25 net cost of attendance for a student who received the average level of need-based financial aid.
The higher the quality of the program and the lower the cost, the better the deal. Only schools ranked in or near the top half of their categories are included – U.S. News considers the most significant value to be among colleges that are above average academically.
“Top Performers on Social Mobility” puts Bethel among those schools U.S. News considers “more successful than others at advancing social mobility by enrolling and graduating large proportions of [economically] disadvantaged students awarded with Pell Grants.”
U.S. News rankings take into account student outcomes such as graduation and retention rates, federal loan debt and earnings five years after graduation; peer assessment; faculty resources; and financial resources, among others.
You can explore Bethel’s rankings in more detail by going to www.usnews.com/best-colleges/bethel-college-1905 or see the complete Midwest list at www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/regional-colleges-midwest
Bethel is a four-year liberal arts college founded in 1887 and is the oldest Mennonite college in North America. Bethel was the only Kansas college or university to be named a Truth, Community Healing and Transformation (TCHT) Campus Center, in 2021. For more information, see www.bethelks.edu
