UF climbed two spots in both the national and public school standings in the U.S. News & World Report 2010 rankings.
UF moved from 17th to 15th on the U.S. News & World Report's 2010 Top Public National Universities ranking and from 49th to 47th in the National Universities ranking.
UF spokesman Steve Orlando said UF improved its average freshmen retention rate, student-faculty ratio and acceptance rate.
"Given all the budget constraints we had, a lot of people thought we would fall this year," Orlando said.
Jordan Johnson, UF's Student Body president, said UF's rise was due in part to the UF community's decision to face the challenge of budget cuts head-on.
"We really came together, and we made compromises that were in the best interest of the university in moving forward," Johnson said. "We have to keep preaching the idea that, look, we're going to make it through this, we're going to make it out better than we came in, and the education at UF will not compromise to a bad economy."
Despite this optimism, UF's performance slipped in some areas of the ranking assessment, including expected graduation rate, financial resources rank and the number of freshmen from the top 10 percent of their high school classes.
Bob Morse, the director of data research at U.S. News & World Report, said UF's rise in rank was a very slight increase because the data were compared to information from more than 250 schools.
Regardless of the rankings, Orlando said, UF's goal continues to be to provide the best education possible.
"Rather than keeping our eyes on the scoreboard, we need to just play ball and keep moving down the field," he said.
But according to Orlando, parents and students still pay attention to the rankings.
Kate Shoulders, a Ph.D. candidate in agricultural education, said UF's high rank was one of the reasons why she came to the university.
"They seem like they strive to keep the best programs and to keep the best ranking," she said.
