CHAPEL HiILL, -- The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ranks fifth among the nation’s best public universities for the 13th consecutive year, according to U.S. News & World Report. The rankings appear today (Sept. 10) in the 2014 “America’s Best Colleges” guidebook and at www.usnews.com.

According to information released by UNC-Chapel Hill, among national public universities, UC-Berkeley ranked first, followed by UCLA and Virginia (tied for second), Michigan (fourth) and UNC (fifth); the same order as for the past two years. Among both national public and private universities, UNC ranked 30th overall, the same as last year. Other publics were between tied for 20th (Berkeley) and 28th (Michigan). Among the top five publics, overall composite scores remained the same at Berkeley (79) and Michigan (74) and went down one point at UCLA and Virginia (76), followed by UNC (72).

U.S. News rankings are based on several key measures of quality, weighted as follows: graduation and retention rates (22.5 percent), assessment by peers and counselors (22.5 percent), faculty resources (20 percent), student selectivity (12.5 percent), financial resources (10 percent), graduation rate performance (difference between actual and predicted graduation rates, 7.5 percent) and alumni giving (5 percent).