For the fourth consecutive year the magazine U.S. News & World Report ranked 130-year-old Brenau University as the 10th best education value in the Southeast.

Brenau’s rankings appear among the magazine’s listings of colleges and universities whose highest academic programs lead to master’s degrees. The only other Georgia institution in the best value top 10, Mercer, offers doctoral and professional degrees, but not enough of those programs to have bumped the Macon-based university into the magazine’s doctoral degree-granting category.

Brenau ranked 39th overall in the magazine’s rankings of southern colleges and universities in an 11-state region – higher than any other non-doctoral Georgia institution. By comparison, Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, North Georgia College & State University in Dahlonega and Piedmont College in Demorest ranked 43rd, 56th and 59th respectively.

The overall rankings are based on assessments by all the university presidents surveyed, graduation rates, average admission test scores, faculty/student ratio and other criteria. After jumping from 41st to 38th last year, Brenau wound up in a four-way tie for 39th this year with Freed-Hardeman University in Tennessee and two Virginia institutions, Marymount University and Shenandoah University. Mercer slipped from 7th to 8th in the overall rankings and from 5th to 8th in the “best value” category while Georgia College and State University dropped from a tie at 38th last year. North Georgia College & State University fell from 50th. Piedmont did not make it into the top 60 last year.

Brenau also ranked higher in the standings than any Georgia public institution in its size range, including Kennesaw State University.

“Being ranked in the top tier of southern institutions that offer master’s degrees is right where we want to be,” said Brenau President Ed Schrader. “As we embark on a program of beefing up graduate studies at Brenau on our path to becoming a doctoral university, this is a good sign that we are on the right course.”

The U.S. News & World Report 2009 rankings followed Brenau recognition in other media as well. The Chronicle of Higher Education cited the university among its 2008 listing of Great Colleges to Work For.

Highlights of the 2009 U.S. News rankings are available on-line at http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/college/masters-south and are scheduled for publication in the magazine's Aug. 31 issue, which appeared on newsstands starting today – the same day that the magazine´s America's Best Colleges guidebook goes on sale.