America's Top Colleges Explained

America's Top Colleges is an annual Forbes ranking of colleges and universities in the United States, first published in 2008.

History

Forbes rated Princeton University the country's best college in its inaugural (2008) list.^[1] The United States Military Academy at West Point took the top honor the following year.^[2] Williams College was ranked first both in 2010 and 2011, and Princeton returned to the top spot in 2012.^{[3] [4] [5]}

In 2013 and 2016, Stanford University occupied the No. 1 spot, with elite liberal arts schools Williams College and Pomona College topping the rankings in the intervening years.^{[6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]} The magazine ranked Harvard University as America's best college from 2017 until 2021, when the University of California, Berkeley topped the list, becoming the first public school to ever do so.^{[12] [13]} They would be replaced by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2022 and Princeton University would return again to the top spot in 2023.

2023 rankings

As of 2023,^[14] the top ten colleges, according to "America's Top Colleges" are:

• 1. Princeton University (Princeton, New Jersey)
• 2. Yale University (New Haven, Connecticut)
• 3. Stanford University (Stanford, California)
• 4. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, Massachusetts)
• 5. University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, California)
• 6. Columbia University (New York City, New York)
• 7. University of California, Los Angeles (Los Angeles, California)
• 8. University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
• 9. Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts)
• 10. Williams College (Williamstown, Massachusetts)

Methodology

• "Alumni Salary": 20%^[15]
• "Debt": 15%
• "Return On investment": 15%
• "Graduation Rate": 15%
• "Forbes American Leaders List": 15%
• "Retention Rate": 10%
• "Academic Success": 10%

Misreporting

Starting in 2013, four schools that had admitted to misreporting admissions data were removed from the list for two years. The four removed colleges were Bucknell University, Claremont McKenna College, Emory University, and Iona College.^[16]

Notes and References

1. News: 13 August 2008 . America's Best Colleges 2008 . en . Forbes . 1 August 2020.
2. News: America's Best Colleges 2009 . en . Forbes . 1 August 2020.
3. News: Noer . Michael . 3 August 2011 . America's Top Colleges . en . Forbes . 1 August 2020.
4. News: Goldstein . Rachel . 5 August 2011 . Williams College Takes Top Spot in Forbes' University Rankings . Time . 1 August 2020.
5. News: Forbes Publishes Rankings of America's Top Colleges: Princeton University is No. 1 . en . Forbes . 1 August 2020.
6. News: Howard . Caroline . America's Top Colleges 2013 . en . Forbes . 1 August 2020.
7. News: Howard . Caroline . America's Top Colleges 2014 . en . Forbes . 1 August 2020.
8. News: Howard . Caroline . 29 July 2015 . America's Top Colleges Ranking 2015 . en . Forbes . 1 August 2020.
9. News: Bravo . Kristina . 30 July 2015 . Pomona College is No. 1 on Forbes list of best in US . Southern California Public Radio . 1 August 2020.
10. News: Rand . Jory . 30 July 2015 . Forbes ranks Pomona College as top college in US . en . ABC7 Los Angeles . 1 August 2020.
11. News: Howard . Caroline . America's Top Colleges 2016 . en . Forbes . 1 August 2020.
12. Web site: Forbes America's Top Colleges List 2021 . 2021-09-09 . Forbes . English.
13. Web site: SFGATE . Amy Graff . 2021-09-08 . SF Bay Area college is the first public university to top Forbes list . 2021-09-09 . SFGATE . en-US. }
14. https://www.forbes.com/top-colleges/ "America"s Top Colleges"
15. Web site: Kreznar . Christian . 2021-09-08 . The nuts-and-bolts underlying our annual list of the best schools. . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20220605145908/https://www.forbes.com/sites/christiankreznar/2021/09/08/how-we-rank-americas-top-colleges/?sh=433095ce43e0 . 2022-06-05 . 2022-07-26 . Forbes . en.
16. Web site: July 25, 2013 . 'Forbes' Boots 4 Colleges From Its Rankings . May 12, 2014 . Inside Higher Ed.