The ACE report, entitled An Assessment of Quality in Graduate Education, drew these four conclusions.

* There is a close relation between excellence and salaries. The top-ranking universities averaged $14,700 a year in compensation, and the lowest-ranking only paid $9,500.

* The top-ranking schools also had the best libraries. The ACE rated Harvard's library system the most outstanding, followed by Berkeley, Yale, U.C.L.A., Cornell, Illinois, Stanford, Michigan, Columbia, and Chicago.

* Departments rated "distinguished" are concentrated in only 13 states, primarily in the Northeast. No university in the Rocky Mountains or the Southeast states could claim a single department in the highest category, and Southwest and Plains states only placed one each in any of the 29 fields.

* Highly-ranked departments in closely allied fields tend to clump together. For instance, a "distinguished" political science department is usually found in a school with a "distinguished" history department.

The latest evaluation, begun in 1964, will update similar surveys made by the ACE in 1924, 1934, and 1957. The next survey will be made in 1970.