Simpson University placed in five categories of the U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges rankings, led by a fourth-place finish for Best Colleges for Veterans among regional colleges in the West.
The university also ranked seventh for Best Value School in the West, 15th among Top Performers for Social Mobility, and tied for 14th for Best Private College and 18th for Best Regional College in the West.
The recognition arrives as Simpson prepares to open a new Maurice & Marianne Johannessen Veterans Success Center inside its Hugh and Hazel Darling Center for Business, Technology, and Engineering STEM building, expanding a program that already serves one of the largest veteran populations of any campus in the North State.
Fourth in the West for veterans
To be considered for the veterans ranking, a university must participate in federal programs that help veterans and active-duty service members pay for their degrees. Simpson is certified for the GI Bill and participates in the Yellow Ribbon Program.
Simpson goes further than the minimum. A few years ago, the university restructured its programming to lift its Yellow Ribbon contribution to an unlimited amount, said Andrew Tuggle, director of the Veterans Success Center.
“That really set the stage to be able to serve those students no matter where they are financially,” Tuggle said. “It just guarantees that they are going to be able to get an education from Simpson at a zero-dollar cost. The VA is going to help pay the bill, and we are also going to help meet in the middle where those gaps were a few years back.”
Veterans and active-duty service members made up 6.3% of Simpson’s enrollment in the 2025-26 school year.
A director who has been there
Tuggle is a veteran himself, which helps set Simpson University’s Veterans Services above many others. He fell into this line of work through his own difficult return to school.
“When I got out of the service, I put life on hold for family,” Tuggle said. “When I finally started going again, I encountered some of those same exact struggles. I started my master’s program, started getting the runaround at the school, not really sure what to do, not really sure how to be successful again. And I wasn’t successful.”
That experience is common among people who end up in veteran services, he said.
“You never want to see somebody fail the same way that you failed. In the veteran community, it’s a big component of how people get into veteran services, whether it’s suicide prevention or career counseling. It’s the ways that they have failed that they want to make sure their fellow brothers and sisters can succeed.”
It also shapes how he advises students.
“That’s one of the best things about working with veterans. There is no nonsense,” Tuggle said. “I am not pushing an agenda. I am not pushing them to say, hey, you have to go to school to be successful, because they have earned that right to figure out what they want to do.”
He points to student Johnny Palmer as an example of what the right support can do.
“He has not only been an outstanding student, but to see his transition of who he is today and who he was six years ago when he started this process, it’s great to see those night and day differences,” Tuggle said.
Services built around the student
Simpson’s location works in its students’ favor. Shasta County has a large veteran community, and the university draws on local partners rather than building every service from scratch.
One of those partners is Hire Heroes USA, which works with students in their final year of college.
“It is a program that will help them go to school and figure out what they want to do after they graduate, help them build their resume, help them do interviews, and also help them find jobs in their specific field,” Tuggle said.
Simpson also partners closely with Our Heroes Dreams, a local organization dedicated to suicide prevention in the veteran community. Tuggle said the program gives students a place to turn as they work out what comes next.
On campus, veteran students get tutoring services designed for them and a single point of contact for everything else.
“If they came in with a bad GPA, they can work through me rather than having to go through the runaround of the entire university,” Tuggle said. “They get all of their needs met in one place, at one time, so they have a seamless transition into education and can be successful.”
More to come
Simpson is not treating the ranking as a finish line. The university will hold a ribbon-cutting for its new Hugh and Hazel Darling Center for Business, Technology, and Engineering STEM building, which will house the Maurice & Marianne Johannessen Veterans Success Center.
The new space will expand what the program can offer, including bringing the Shasta County Veteran Service Officer onto campus.
“That’s something we have not had the flexibility to do,” Tuggle said.
He sees the payoff reaching past graduation. “Simpson does a really good job at building those students and building people to be able to be successful in the community,” he said, “to heighten our community here in Shasta County.”
Where Simpson landed
| Category | Rank |
| Best Colleges for Veterans, Regional Colleges West | 4th |
| Best Value School, West | 7th |
| Best Private College, West | 14th (tie) |
| Top Performers for Social Mobility | 15th |
| Best Regional College, West | 18th (tie) |
The Best Value ranking weighs academic quality against the 2025-26 net cost of attendance for an out-of-state student receiving the average need-based aid package. Only schools ranked in or near the top half of their categories are included, since U.S. News counts the most meaningful values as those found among above-average schools.
The social mobility ranking measures how well a university graduates students who receive Pell Grants, federal awards based on poverty guidelines, family size and whether a student is supported by a single parent. At Simpson, 44% of students received Pell Grants in 2024-25.
Small classes behind the numbers
The rankings reflect an environment built on close contact between students and faculty. Simpson’s student-to-faculty ratio is 18 to 1, and 52% of classes currently have fewer than 20 students.
For veteran students and traditional undergraduates alike, that means being known by name rather than by student ID.
