CLEMSON —Clemson University ranks No. 7 among national universities on an exclusive U.S.News & World Report list of the most efficient schools.

According to Robert Morse, director of data research for U.S. News, the rankings represent those schools that are “able to produce the highest educational quality, as determined by their place in the 2014 Best Colleges rankings, but spend relatively less on educational programs to achieve that quality.”

The publication ranks Clemson No. 21 among top public national universities for 2014.

In announcing its criteria, U.S. News stated it measured a school’s financial resources by taking into account how much it spends per student on instruction, research, student services and related educational expenditures. According to the publication, “financial resources have a 10 percent weight in the Best Colleges ranking methodology. U.S. News defines operating efficiency for this list as a school’s 2012 fiscal year financial resources per student divided by its overall score — the basis U.S. News uses to determine its overall numerical rank — in the 2014 Best Colleges rankings. This calculation reveals how much each school is spending to achieve one point in the overall score and its position in the rankings.”

“This means the colleges and universities on the list are doing a very good job at producing a top ranking for academic quality while carefully spending their available financial resources, as measured relative to other schools that may have greater sources of funding from states, tuition or endowments,” Morse wrote.

Clemson University is the publication’s highest-ranked school from South Carolina.

“We are honored to be recognized for the quality and value that we bring to and share with our students,” said Brett Dalton, Clemson’s vice president for finance and operations. “It is a part of our core commitment to the community that we are fiscally prudent with our resources while providing the utmost educational and student-life experiences. And university-wide, our faculty and staff work together to do just that.”

Clemson is no stranger to U.S. News rankings. Along with Clemson’s overall ranking, the publication ranked the undergraduate engineering and business programs and graduate bioengineering, chemical engineering, civil engineering, computer engineering, electrical engineering, environmental engineering, industrial engineering, materials science and engineering and mechanical engineering programs among the top at national public universities for 2014. U.S. News also has identified Clemson as one of only 19 public colleges to make writing across all disciplines a priority.