College Choice, a leading authority in college and university rankings and resources, has published a ranking of the 100 Best Colleges and Universities for 2017.
College choice believe rankings are still important for students, since college (though expensive), is often still worth the investment. According to a Georgetown University research study, over 95 percent of new jobs created since the Great Recession have gone to people with at least some college education. That, along with the dramatic increase in lifelong earning potential, means that a college education is still the clearest path to a prosperous future.
“The United States has a dizzying array of colleges, from small to large, focused on liberal arts or research or technical skills, private or public, online or commuter or residential,” Christian Amondson, Managing Editor of College Choice, said of the ranking in a released statement. “With this ranking, we are aiming to provide an authoritative list of the very best institutions of higher education in the country. The list contains great diversity in type of school, but all of them are similar in their commitment to excellence in scholarship.”
A Focus on Student ROI
College Choice developed its list by looking at academic quality along with return on investment—the differential between tuition costs and average early career earnings.
(Next page: The 100 Best Colleges and Universities for 2017 for ROI, quality)
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the ranking for the 100 Best Colleges and Universities for 2017 finds Harvard University in the top spot. Princeton University is in second, and Stanford University rounds out the top three.
The entire ranking, listed in alphabetical order, is as follows:
Amherst College
Babson College
Barnard College
Bates College
Berea College
Boston College
Boston University
Bowdoin College
Brandeis University
Brigham Young University-Provo
Brown University
Bryn Mawr College
Bucknell University
California Institute of Technology
Carleton College
Carnegie Mellon University
Case Western Reserve University
Claremont McKenna College
Colby College
Colgate University
College of the Ozarks
College of William and Mary
Columbia University in the City of New York
Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art
Cornell University
CUNY Bernard M Baruch College
Dartmouth College
Davidson College
Duke University
Emory University
George Washington University
Georgetown University
Georgia Institute of Technology
Grinnell College
Hamilton College
Harvard University
Harvey Mudd College
Haverford College
Illinois Institute of Technology
Johns Hopkins University
Kenyon College
Lafayette College
Lehigh University
Macalester College
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Middlebury College
New York University
Northeastern University
Northwestern University
Occidental College
Pepperdine University
Pitzer College
Pomona College
Princeton University
Reed College
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Rice University
San Diego State University
Santa Clara University
Scripps College
Skidmore College
Stanford University
Stevens Institute of Technology
Stony Brook University
SUNY at Binghamton
Swarthmore College
The University of Texas at Austin
Tufts University
Tulane University of Louisiana
University of California-Berkeley
University of California-Davis
University of California-Irvine
University of California-Los Angeles
University of California-Riverside
University of California-San Diego
University of California-Santa Barbara
University of California-Santa Cruz
University of Chicago
University of Connecticut
University of Florida
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Miami
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of Notre Dame
University of Pennsylvania
University of Richmond
University of Southern California
University of Virginia
University of Washington-Seattle Campus
Vanderbilt University
Vassar College
Washington and Lee University
Washington University in St Louis
Wellesley College
Wesleyan University
Whitman College
Williams College
Yale University
College Choice is an independent online publication dedicated to helping students and their families find the right college. The site publishes rankings and reviews that make finding the best colleges for different interests easier and more fun, as well as resources to help students get into, pay for, and thrive at the college of their choice.
For the full ranking and methodology, click here.
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