Gallery: America's Top 25 Colleges 2016
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America's Top Colleges 2016
The No. 1 FORBES Top College 2016 is Stanford University, followed by Williams College and Princeton University. The highest ranking public school is the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The University of Notre Dame is the premier Midwestern institution and Davidson College lands as the best school in the South.
The FORBES 9th annual Top Colleges ranking speaks directly to three important trends:
- The emerging clout-flip from the Northeast Establishment to new guard West Coast schools;
- The contest between small student-centric liberal arts colleges and juggernaut STEM-oriented research universities;
- The disproportionately high number of old, private schools as the best return on investment.
This year’s No. 1 FORBES Top College is Stanford University, followed by Williams College and Princeton University. Harvard University, comes in at No. 4, followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale University (No. 6) and Pomona College (No. 7). Rounding out the 10 best U.S. schools are Brown University, Wesleyan University and Swarthmore College.
Higher ed in transition is the theme of the 2016 Top Colleges ranking. What sets our calculation of the best 660 U.S. colleges and universities apart is our firm belief in ROI. We look at factors that directly concern students (and their families): Are current undergrads satisfied? Is it likely I'll graduate on time or incur a ton of student debt? Will I get a good job and be a leader in my chosen profession? Partnering with the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, our math comes from the Department of Education, Payscale, and the America's Leaders list, our curated tally of alumni success.
Like every college ranking, this list cannot quantify the mystery of picking a school: how it connects to a student’s heart and ambitions. But what it does do is speak directly to those footing a six-figure higher ed bill and looking for a consumer guide to the ROI of every college. In the last four decades tuition and fees have risen 270% at public schools and 204% at their private counterparts. For those footing a higher ed bill stretching as high as $250,000, the only question is: Is my college worth the investment?
The Top 25
All of the top 25 schools on this list have the very highest retention rates (94% and above); with 11 schools boasting rates of 98% and MIT and University of Chicago (No. 20) leading at 99%. Their graduation rates far outpace the national average of 51% for four years and 66% in six years. Harvard has the highest at 98%, followed by Princeton at 97%. Student debt is minimal -- with 7% of students taking out loans at Harvard, 8% at Yale and 10% at Stanford -- and for good cause. The two service academies, U.S. Military Academy (No. 14) and U.S. Naval Academy (No.24), the only two public schools in the top 25, are free of charge while the others are committed to meeting full demonstrated financial need through scholarships, grants and more.
A number of former students of these elite school are huge successes, amassing fortunes and defining our era. Over this past year, for example, Stanford alumni Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, cofounders of Snapchat, made the Forbes billionaires list. Wesleyan alumnus Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of 11-time Tony winner Hamilton, won a McArthur genius grant. University of Pennsylvania has minted 21 of the Forbes 400, billionaires with a personal net worth over $1.7 billion. The world's first college campus LGBTQ group was started by one Columbia University (No. 16) student in 1966.
The Tilt West
"This is where it's all happening...the connections, the energy." -- Mark Zuckerberg character, "The Social Network"
In 1884, San Francisco railroad tycoon Leland Stanford visited several East Coast colleges. Not just any schools: Harvard, MIT, Johns Hopkins and Cornell. A year later he founded Stanford University. No one could have imagined that in the following century-plus this startup school would emerge as the nation's preeminent university, which in large part created today's Silicon Valley, the cult of entrepreneurship and a global boom of digital disruption. Students all over the world are increasingly drawn to the nowness of the West Coast.
Applications and admissions rates for the Class of 2020 at nearly all the top schools are at record-breaking highs, an important story in itself. But to drill down, there is a slight, but meaningful, tilt West. Stanford received 43,977 applications and accepted 2,037 -- a rate of 4.7%, the lowest in the country. Harvard, in comparison, accepted 2,063 students out of a pool of 39,044, a 5.2% acceptance rate.
At UC Berkeley (No. 40), the top public school in the West, admitted 14.8% freshmen applicants -- some 12,230 out of 82,560. Its East Coast counterpart, University of Virginia (No. 36) saw a 28.9% acceptance from its 32,430 applicant pool. Looking at the two highest ranked liberal arts schools on each coast, Pomona admitted 9.1% -- just over 8,100 applications for 743 admitted -- as compared with Williams at 17% -- or 1,206 from a total applicant pool of 6,982.
In terms of post-grad earnings, Harvey Mudd College, a very young STEM-oriented private school founded in 1955, is the nation's top-earning school for undergraduates at an average mid-career salary of $133,000 annually. The California Institute of Technology edges past its counterpart, MIT, at $125,000 vs. $124,000.
Gems vs. Juggernauts
"Don't think of it as work. The whole point is just to enjoy yourself." -- Otter, "Animal House"
Overall, the top of this ranking is a tug-of-war between baccalaureate gems, whose "Job 1" is educating and catering to undergrads, and the juggernaut research institutions on the cutting edge of science, technology, math and engineering. Overall about 40% of bachelor's degrees earned by men and 29% by women are in the hard sciences.
This year we have 51 liberal arts colleges in the top 100. Wesleyan makes it first appearance in the top 10, up from No. 17 last year, and Boston College makes the top 25 for the first time, up from a former high of No. 26 in both 2012 and 2011.
Size matters: Swarthmore's 425-acre arboretum campus has some 1,500 students and 87% full-time professors, and Amherst College (No. 12) offers a 1,450 acre campus for its nearly 1,800 students and 90% full-time professors; both have a 8:1 class ratio. To compare, Columbia's main 32-acre campus houses 27,600 students with 53% full-time professors and Georgetown University (No. 21)'s 100-acre main campus has nearly 18,000 students with 50% full-time professors.
The Classics
"What? Like it's hard?" -- Elle Woods, "Legally Blond"
Part of this ranking is history: Harvard was founded in 1636 -- before calculus was invented. All the Ivys do very, very well: seven of the eight Ivy League schools and five of the eight "Little Ivies" make the top 20. For millions of students, and not just Americans, Ivy League schools continue to hold unequivocal prestige and value. Of the youngest schools on this ranking, University of California, Irvine (No. 162) was founded in 1965, as was UC, Santa Cruz (No. 200). Established in 1982, University of Illinois, Chicago (No. 340) is the youngest and is widely known for its focus on computer science. Of the privates, Harvey Mudd was chartered in 1955.
The non-coastal schools come out on top are University of Notre Dame (No. 13), Northwestern University (No. 15), University of Chicago (No. 20) and Davidson College (No. 25).
The 25 Top Colleges 2016
- Stanford University
- Williams College
- Princeton University
- Harvard University
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Yale University
- Pomona College
- Brown University
- Wesleyan University
- Swarthmore College
- University of Pennsylvania
- Amherst College
- University of Notre Dame
- U.S. Military Academy
- Northwestern University
- Columbia University
- Dartmouth College
- Tufts University
- Bowdoin College
- University of Chicago
- Georgetown University
- Boston College
- Haverford College
- U.S. Naval Academy
- Davidson College
