U.S. News and World Report recently released its annual “America’s Best Colleges” issue. Saint Louis University had been ranked as the 77th best school in the nation last year; this year, SLU slid five places, being named the 82nd school out of the 262 national universities that were rated. It remains one of the top five Jesuit universities in the country. In addition, SLU’s undergraduate engineering program ranked at No. 21, and the graduate entrepreneurship program ranked at No. 27.

“If our ranking has gone down, why does our tuition keep going up?” said Kate Bathon, a senior studying social work.

After receiving criticism that their rankings “didn’t encourage schools to take low-income, at-risk students” (from Robert Morse’s article, “Morse Code: Inside the College Rankings”), U.S. News and World Report made some changes to their computations. To acknowledge the universities that offer financial aid packages to high percentages of students from low-income families, the magazine added the schools’ percentage of Federal Pell Grant recipients to their calculations. A Federal Pell Grant is federal aid that does not have to be repaid.

Although the addition of Pell grant statistics was the primary change to the school rating system, it likely does not explain SLU’s sudden drop in the rankings. According to the census, SLU remains among the top 75 schools that reward financial aid.

“I heard that SLU’s position decreased, but I don’t think that should affect students,” Jacqueline Kobesak, a sophomore majoring in international studies and Spanish, said. “So far, this year is already better than last, even though we’re only one week in.”