Name of the ranking US News Best Colleges
Geographical scope general ranking
Name of person in charge of ranking Robert Morse
E-mail of person in charge of ranking This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Website of the ranking https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges; https://www....
Publication frequency annual
First year of publication 1983
Most recent year of publication 2024
Date of last update 2024-10-22
Ranking organization U.S. News & World Report LP
Website of the methodology https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/ranking-criteria-and-weights; https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings
Methodology

The Ranking includes four ranking lists and all of them consider the same methodology:

 

U.S. News & World Report's 2025 Best Colleges edition used 17 key measures of academic quality for National Universities and 13 for National Liberal Arts Colleges, Regional Universities and Regional Colleges. The key difference between the weights for National Universities and those for other rankings is that the National Universities methodology has four indicators pertaining to faculty research, which are aligned mission-wise with their Carnegie classifications as doctoral universities.

The indicators include both input measures, which reflect the quality of students, faculty and other resources used in education, and outcome measures, which capture the results of the education an individual receives at the institution: 

  • Graduation rates 
  • First-year student retention rates 
  • Graduation rate performance
  • Pell graduation rates
  • Pell graduation performance
  • College grads earnings more than a high school grad
  • Borrower debt
  • Peer assessment
  • Financial resources
  • Faculty salaries
  • Full-time faculty
  • Student-faculty ratio
  • Standarized tests
  • Citations per publication
  • Field-Weightes Citation Impact
  • Publication share in the Top 5% of Journals by CiteScore
  • Publication share in the Top 25% of Journals by CiteScore

Additional information

  • Type of publication: internet, print – special publication
  • Internet users access to ranking: open access
  • Main target groups: students and parents, higher education institutions
  • Level of comparison: institutional: between 68 and 436, depending on the ranking
  • Major dimensions covered: reputation, research, teaching, social mobility
  • Structure of presentation: standard presentation (league tables)
  • Data sources: data collected from HEIs by ranking organization, data collected from HEIs by third-party agencies, survey conducted exclusively by ranking organization
  • Quality assurance of ranking: advisory board, periodic consultancy
  • Website of the ranking organization: http://www.usnews.com
  • Types of the ranking organization: commercial/for-profit (incl. media)