TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - The University of Alabama ranks among the top 50 public universities in the nation in the U.S. News & World Report rankings for 2003.

UA is 45th among public national universities -- up from 48th last year -- while UA's Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration is ranked 47th nationally among undergraduate business programs.

“We appreciate this recognition of our academic programs,” said Dr. J. Barry Mason, interim president. “This ranking is a tribute to the hard work and dedication of our faculty, staff and students. The true measure of our success is consistency. We must continue to look for ways to retain the excellent faculty we now have and find ways to recruit new faculty members of equal caliber.”

U.S. News cited UA's 82 percent freshman retention rate as one of the criteria used in compiling the rankings. It also noted that 44 percent of its classes had less than 20 students, and the student to faculty ratio is 19 to 1.

UA’s Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration was ranked in the top 50 of all undergraduate business programs, both public and private, for the fourth consecutive year.

In the magazine's ranking of all doctoral universities, public and private, UA was one of two universities in the state ranked in the second tier of the nation's top universities. The second tier includes those schools ranked just below the top 50, and included such schools are the universities of Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Nebraska, Oklahoma as well as Auburn, Purdue and Ohio State.

Last spring in U.S. News’ rankings of graduate schools, UA’s School of Law was ranked among the top 50 law schools for the fourth time in as many years. Previous rankings have also placed graduate programs in the College of Communication and Information Sciences among the nation’s best. The nation’s communication programs were not ranked this year.