Congressman Elijah E. Cummings (MD-07), Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, congratulated the United States Coast Guard Academy at New London, Conn., for being named one of the top institutions of higher learning by U.S. News & World Report, The Princeton Review and Forbes Magazine.
The Coast Guard Academy was awarded first place in the Baccalaureate Colleges (North) category in the 2011 edition of U.S. News and World Report's Best Colleges issue. The Academy earned a perfect overall score of 100, the highest among more than 300 colleges which were ranked.
The news comes only weeks after Cummings recognized the Academy for their improvement in diversity efforts. The Class of 2014 reported for training on June 28. At that time, 199 male and 90 female cadets were sworn into the class. The gender diversity of the Coast Guard Academy has consistently increased in the past several years. Thus, the Class of 2012 was comprised of only 29 percent female cadets while the Class of 2014 is 31 percent female.
Along with gender diversity, nearly 24 percent of the incoming class are non-Caucasian, including 35 Hispanic Americans, 15 African Americans, and 13 Asian Americans. By comparison, the Class of 2012, which was sworn in 2008, was comprised of only 12 percent of cadets who identified themselves as an ethnic minority.
Along with recognition by U.S. News and World Report, The Coast Guard Academy was also featured in The Princeton Review's Best in the Northeast section on PrincetonReview.com and ranked highly in Forbes Magazine's America's Best Colleges 2010 edition.