a "Best Buy" school, a designation based on academic quality in relation to cost. The Princeton Review named Augustana one of 159 "Best in the Midwest" schools in 2015. In 2017, Forbes's list of "America's Top Colleges" placed Augustana 97th among schools in the Midwest and 423rd overall.
=== Arts ===
Augustana created the Center for Western Studies in 1970, founded by professor Herbert Krause, which serves as a library, repository for special collections of art and artifacts, and academic publisher. The center holds an annual Dakota Conference on the Northern Plains for history, literature, art, and archaeology. It is "the largest annual humanities conference specifically about the Northern Plains". In addition to shows and galleries of Western, Scandinavian, and Native American art, the Center also hosts the Boe Forum on Public Affairs, which has featured speakers such as Pervez Musharraf, Sandra Day O'Connor, and Mikhail Gorbachev.
The Augustana Choir and Concert Band tour widely nationally and internationally, …
