ECU recognized in new national rankings, guidebook
East Carolina University’s commitment to service and social mobility has earned it a top spot in a national ranking released Monday by Washington Monthly. Another organization, Princeton Review, has included ECU in its 2025 edition of the Best 390 Colleges released Tuesday.
ECU students Hailey White, McKenzie Harris and Jada Johnson take a break in the ECU Main Campus Student Center. (Photo by Steven Mantilla).
ECU is in the top 10% of Washington Monthly’s 2024 Best Bang for the Buck schools in the Southeast. ECU was listed No. 29 of 277 in the Southeast, an area that includes Alabama, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.
For national universities, ECU is in the top 16% based on its commitment to three goals — social mobility, research and public service — which are weighted equally by the nonprofit Washington Monthly magazine.
ECU is in the top three universities — public or private — in North Carolina. Nationally, ECU was 70th of 438 schools that were ranked. ECU’s social mobility, service and research rankings were 63, 66 and 241, respectively. This places ECU in the top 15% in the nation for social mobility and service.
The social mobility portion also doubles as the Best Bang for the Buck rankings, which are organized by region.
A total of 1,487 — public, private, nonprofit and for-profit — institutions were evaluated for the 2024 College Guide. More on the methodology for the rankings is available online.
The Princeton Review, an educational services company known for its tutoring, test prep courses, books and other student resources, has included ECU in its 2025 edition of the Best 390 Colleges guidebook, which went on sale this week. The Princeton Review does not rank schools from 1 to 390 for the book.
Instead, the company annually ranks the top 25 schools in 50 categories that are entirely based on the company’s surveys of 168,000 students attending schools in the guidebook. The information was posted online at the Princeton Review Tuesday.
ECU’s two-page profile in the Best 390 Colleges highlights the most frequent answers given by ECU students to survey questions on topics ranging from academics, financial aid and campus amenities to school services, campus culture and community matters.
Students praised ECU’s engineering program, which “offers students an unlimited number of opportunities,” and “the nursing school, [which] is second to none.”
Others commented on how ECU faculty and staff “make it possible to make a lot of connections for everything,” and resources that include a “huge library, writing center, multiple computer labs and study lounges, career center, organization start up lessons [and] counseling center.” There are “so many different services provided for students to help them succeed” and “the Pirate Academic Success Center is always open for tutoring to give a helping hand.”
ECU Institutional Planning, Assessment and Research contributed to this story.