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University of Princeton
Princeton returns to No. 1 in the Forbes list -- it last held the spot in 2008.
College is outrageously expensive. Four years at an elite, private school like the University of Chicago (#4) or Stanford (#3) costs more than a quarter of a million dollars. A degree from a more affordable state school, like the College of William & Mary (#40) or the University of California, Berkeley (#50), still costs around $100,000, even for “in-state” students, who pay less in tuition.
Is it worth it? For many students, the answer is probably not – unless they are accomplished enough to be accepted by one of the schools ranked near the top of our annual list of America’s 650 Top Colleges.
The rankings, which are compiled exclusively for Forbes by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for College Affordability and Productivity, focus on the things that matter the most to students: quality of teaching, great career prospects, high graduation rates and low levels of debt. They do not attempt to assess a school’s reputation, nor are they a measure of academic selectivity and we pointedly ignore any metrics that would encourage schools to engage in wasteful spending.
Forbes' full list of America’s top colleges
Princeton University (#1) tops the list again, for the first time since 2008. Williams College (#2) slips into second place, after two consecutive years as top dog. Ivy League schools dominate the top ten, claiming three spots in addition to Princeton: Yale (#5), Harvard (#6) and Columbia (#8); Cornell (#51) was the only Ivy not to crack the elite top 50.
Roman Iwasiwka / Williams College
Williams College slipped to No. 2 in Forbes' listing after two years at No. 1.
Rounding out the top ten are the University of Chicago (#4), a place where undergraduates say “fun comes to die,” West Point (#7), whose cadets pay no tuition, although they must serve on active duty in the U.S. Army post-graduation, Pomona College (#9), one of the seven Claremont Colleges in Southern California and Swarthmore (#10). Excluding service academies, there are five public schools in the top 50, with the University of Virginia (#36) being the highest ranked.
The rankings are based on five general categories: post graduate success (32.5%), which evaluates alumni pay and prominence, student satisfaction (27.5%), which includes professor evaluations and freshman to sophomore year retention rates, debt (17.5%), which penalizes schools for high student debt loads and default rates, four-year graduation rate (11.25%) and competitive awards (11.25%), which rewards schools whose students win prestigious scholarships and fellowships like the Rhodes, the Marshall and the Fulbright or go on to earn a Ph.D. The complete methodology is available here.
Related stories from Forbes:
- America’s Top 100 Colleges 2012
- Top 20 Best Value Colleges
- The Best Public Colleges
- The Best Private Colleges
- The Best Liberal Arts Colleges
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Leave a Comment:
The best education money can buy! Most the people running our government are from these Universities so they must be good! /end sarcasm.
Remember, Forbes is owned by a second generation WASP owner, his perspective is from pure whiteness.
Diversity is a critical consideration in the quality of any school, quite a few on the list are some of the least diverse in the country - and we wonder why we are so divided by social class?
Typical of all Forbes lists, underlying conservatism is an unspoken yet extremely highly-regarded virtue and phantom criterium.
Right, because the large number of liberal arts colleges that outrank famed universities on this list is indicative of a bias towards conservatism. Indeed the choice of Yale as superior to Harvard speaks to the deeply rooted conservative ethos of the list makers. And the University of Chicago has a business school, so of course if it does well then we may be assured that it is because of the conspiracy against the left.
Come on, regardless of Forbes' tendencies, the rating metrics are all available in the article and there is not a space for "conservative" to be checked.
Princeton, its a place I visit quite often , its an institution that I would recommend to the bright and enquiring mind. Anywhere one goes there are always negatives and positives , but my observations allows me to lay positives here.
Based on Richard Vedder's "Affordability" analysis!
Vedder is well-known for flawed reports, readily exposed by anyone with knowledge of the facts.
He is a narcissist who loves publicity, taking cheap shots regularly at universities around the country, in order to advance the cause of privatizing public education.
Consider the source and the ultimate motive.
Undergrad education is becoming more like Law School education...i.e. "Yale or Fail" if you go for a non-STEM major. Due to increasing importance of OCI in the last 15 years, combined with intense job market, elite schools are more desirable than ever. If you know what law school recruiting is like, you know exactly what I mean.
I would not trust Forbes to tell me the sky was blue. Forbes is a magazine with a truly negative agenda.
College students today take on more debt (in time) than old school indentured servants took on 200 yrs ago. They only had 7 yrs they had to work, the students have to work 30 sometimes to pay off the debt. And since college debt is NOT removable via bankruptcy, it never goes away no matter what happens.
So I expect to see a wave of college students that will do one of the following:
1) Move to another country, use the degree from a good US school to get a good job or start a local business, and renounce (or ignore and never return) US citizenship, and never pay off the loans.
2) Do as illegal immigrants do, and create a fake identity, continue to work in the US WITH your education in your head, but not on paper (ie and English degree, of little value for getting jobs), and never pay off the loads.