Knox College Cited for Commitment to the Public Good

Knox College has been highly ranked by Washington Monthly for the contributions it makes for the public benefit.

The rankings, which appear in the Washington Monthly College Guide for 2011, evaluate colleges in three categories: community service, social mobility, and research.

Knox is in the top 10 -- at No. 9 -- among national liberal arts colleges when it comes to the number of alumni who go on to serve in the Peace Corps, relative to school size.

In addition, Knox is at No. 17 among national liberal arts colleges in the percentage of federal work-study dollars spent on community service. Knox allocates 27% of its federal work-study funds to support student jobs in community service

Among all 249 national liberal arts colleges that Washington Monthly considered, Knox was ranked as 70th overall.

The Washington Monthly rankings are intended to call attention to service-oriented learning institutions, according to the publication's editors.

"After all, colleges and universities do as much to shape the future as any institutions you can think of," the editors wrote. "They conduct cutting-edge research that drives economic growth, provide upward mobility to people of humble birth, and mold the characters of tomorrow's leaders."

They describe their College Guide as examining "not what colleges can do for you, but what colleges are doing for the country."