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

• Best National University Rankings - https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities 
• National Liberal Arts Colleges Rankings - https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges
• Best Regional Universities Rankings - https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings?int=top_nav_All_Rankings#regional-universities
• Best Regional Colleges Rankings - https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings?int=top_nav_All_Rankings#regional-colleges

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