Rhode Island
Forbes released its list of the top 500 colleges. These RI ones made the cut.
![Forbes released its list of the top 500 colleges. These RI ones made the cut. Forbes released its list of the top 500 colleges. These RI ones made the cut.](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/authoring/authoring-images/2024/04/17/NPRJ/73349749007-providence-college-campus-pc.jpg?auto=webp&crop=2099,1182,x0,y52&format=pjpg&width=1200)
Native American college was an ‘obvious choice’ for Menominee activist
Jasmine Neosh is a proud member of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin. When it was time for her to go to college, her choice was clear.
Samantha Madar, USA TODAY
Forbes just released their annual list of America’s top colleges, and five schools in Rhode Island made the list.
Forbes’ list highlights the 500 American colleges that offer the best outcomes in education, finances and careers for all students according to their calculations.
Schools are ranked using 14 different metrics, including:
- Retention rate
- Graduation rate
- Alumni success
- Alumni salary
- Debt
While some rankings are the same as last year, such as Princeton University taking the No. 1 spot, there was some movement. Twice as many Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) made the top 500, according to Forbes, and schools with higher admission rates climbed up the rankings.
Out of the 500 schools ranked, five are Rhode Island schools, including one in the top 20. See exactly where these five Rhode Island schools placed below.
Which of Forbes’ top 500 colleges are in Rhode Island?
Here are the five Rhode Island colleges that made it on the Forbes 2024-2025 top colleges list, in order of lowest to highest ranking.
Providence College
Providence College ranked 318th out of 500. Just five minutes from the downtown area of Providence, this private Catholic school is known for its vibrant social environment and basketball program.
University of Rhode Island (URI)
The biggest state school in Rhode Island came in 315th place. Located in Kingston a few miles away from beautiful Rhode Island beaches, URI features a lively student community and state-of-the-art research facilities.
URI news: Dressing for success? ‘Gilded Age’ costume design Emmy would be career high for URI grad
Bryant University
A small private school in Smithfield, Bryant University places 261st. The college is highly regarded for its business-focused education, requiring all students to major or minor in both the College of Arts and Sciences and College of Business.
Rhode Island School of Design (RISD)
RISD, one of the first art and design schools in the country, ranked 208th. This selective, creative school is located alongside the Providence River in the city.
Brown University
Taking the highest rank for a Rhode Island school is Brown University in Providence at 18th out of 500. This Ivy League institution is known for its open curriculum which fosters collaborative research and social action.
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Rhode Island
Providence City Council accepts settlement to evict Skyline at Waterplace – The Boston Globe
![Providence City Council accepts settlement to evict Skyline at Waterplace – The Boston Globe Providence City Council accepts settlement to evict Skyline at Waterplace – The Boston Globe](https://bostonglobe-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/resizer/arXYYjEwN309J9UIlL3yJJgdOoE=/506x0/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/bostonglobe/LPQI6TAHSWM7KTC5XWWASONBMI.jpg)
“It can and should be a great venue for events and for special occasions,” Smiley said. “This operator was not the person to help realize that vision, which is why I pushed so hard to get rid of them.”
Skyline’s lawyer Michael Lepizzera said the company will work with the city to formally memorialize the settlement and voluntarily turn over possession of the premises.
“While Skyline is disappointed that this will mark the close of its operations, the owner is satisfied that a settlement has been reached,” Lepizzera said in a statement. “The original plan was to operate a top scale event facility on the city’s skyline for a minimum of 20 years, which was the term of the lease. Unfortunately, a confluence of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events (especially the pandemic) prevented my client from achieving its business goal.”
Skyline was headed by Rhode Island entrepreneur Michael A. Mota, and the company included his father-in-law, Joseph Ricci, and wife Jodi Mota. Louis Delpidio, a Boston nightclub operator, and David Pontarelli, a former city employee, were also involved when the company began leasing the building in 2016.
At the time, the Skyline at Waterplace group promised then-Mayor Jorge O. Elorza that they had big plans for the venue, which is perched at the edge of the Waterplace Basin.
But the company struggled almost from the beginning, citing issues with construction renovations. So, with Elorza as the chairman, the parks commissioners granted Skyline three abatements that totaled more than three and a half years of rent, in exchange for repairs to the facility. Mota also has claimed, without evidence, that Elorza granted a fourth abatement.
Skyline also received more than $1.8 million in federal COVID relief funds during the pandemic, money that was intended to help keep the business running. Around the same time, Mota launched and sponsored events at Skyline for his Hollywood mobster-themed entertainment and events company, VirtualCons, and his cryptocurrency, VirtualCoin, which was never operable.
Smiley has been trying to evict Skyline since April 2023, citing problems with late rent payments, unpaid taxes, fire code violations, friction with city officials — and recently, a bounced rent check in July and the discovery of the decomposed body of a former employee in August.
According to the police report, the owner of Skyline told officers that the man was homeless and had been given permission to stay at the venue, which had been closed since late July. A statement posted to social media on behalf of the Skyline, the Mota family, and the Ricci family denied that the man was living at the venue. A spokesperson for the mayor’s office told the Globe that the mayor’s office it never would have approved letting someone live there.
Before the settlement was reached, Skyline had been heading for a trial in Superior Court this fall.
“This will enable us to close the chapter with this operator who I’ve been trying to evict now for some time,” Smiley said. “This business and venue has effectively been shuttered and only been doing a handful of events. It is a black hole on Waterplace Park and Basin.”
Committee Chairman John Goncalves and city councilmembers Juan Pichardo, Ana Vargas, Shelley Peterson, and Pedro Espinal voted unanimously to adopt the settlement. The terms were not released Monday. Representatives for Skyline could not immediately be reached for comment on Monday.
“The Skyline space and Waterplace Park are important assets to the city,” Goncalves said in a statement. “With the Providence Parks Department taking over management of the property, we are looking forward to using the future of the space to enhance our city’s downtown.”
Steph Machado of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Amanda Milkovits can be reached at amanda.milkovits@globe.com. Follow her @AmandaMilkovits.
Rhode Island
5 R.I.-based colleges get $3M federal grant for new research administration collaborative
![5 R.I.-based colleges get M federal grant for new research administration collaborative 5 R.I.-based colleges get M federal grant for new research administration collaborative](https://assets.pbn.com/2024/09/RWU-Campus-1.jpg)
Rhode Island
Massachusetts and Rhode Island procure almost 2.9GW of offshore wind – Splash247
![Massachusetts and Rhode Island procure almost 2.9GW of offshore wind – Splash247 Massachusetts and Rhode Island procure almost 2.9GW of offshore wind – Splash247](https://splash247.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/BOEM.jpg)
US states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island have awarded contracts to three projects and procured 2,878MW of offshore wind capacity.
Massachusetts has selected a total of 2,678MW – 1,087MW of the 1,287MW available from Ocean Wind’s SouthCoast Wind multistate project, 791MW from Avangrid’s New England Wind 1 project, and up to 800MW from CIP and Iberdrola’s 1,200MW Vineyard Wind 2 project.
Through this procurement, offshore wind will power over 1.4m Massachusetts homes and will represent nearly 20% of its overall electric demand.
Rhode Island on the other hand has chosen to procure the remaining 200MW from SouthCoast Wind. This will power around 200,000 homes in the state.
SouthCoast Wind is expected to start construction in 2025 and is expected to deliver power by 2030. Avangrid’s New England Wind 1 can begin construction as early as next year, with an expected commercial operations date in 2029 while the Vineyard Wind 2 was proposed in late March this year.
“Simply put, we are going big. This selection is New England’s and Massachusetts’ largest offshore wind selection to date. We’ll power 1.4m more Massachusetts homes with clean, renewable energy, create thousands of good, union jobs, and generate billions of dollars in economic activity. The world will look to New England for the future of clean energy,” said Massachusetts governor Maura Healey.
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