Shaken by the coronavirus pandemic, many American families have been thrust into uncertain times. But one thing the pandemic and resulting economic shake-up made clear is that higher education pays off.
Unemployment has remained lowest for workers over age 25 who have a bachelor’s degree and higher since the pandemic began in the U.S., according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Though the value of an education seems evident in these unprecedented times, making a call on where to go to college remains confusing. Families must grapple with unease about , student debt loads and how long it will take to see a return on their investment. These concerns are balanced alongside other factors such as academics, location, campus culture, safety and more.
To help students and their families address these challenges and enable them to make the right college choice, U.S. 草莓传媒 has released its 2022 rankings. Now in its 37th edition, these rankings were first released in 1983 and have evolved over the decades to add more schools and data points to help college-bound students make informed decisions.
Readers will find rankings for 1,466 colleges and universities. More than 1,850 schools reported most of the data to U.S. 草莓传媒 in an annual survey and were instructed to confirm the accuracy of their data.
Schools are ranked separately by categories such as , institutions that are often research-oriented and offer bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees; and , which emphasize undergraduate education and award half or more of their degrees across liberal arts fields. Additionally, regional colleges and universities are split into eight categories dependent on geographic location and whether master’s degrees are offered.
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U.S. 草莓传媒 measured academic quality , with the most weight placed on outcomes, including not only the ability of a college to retain and graduate its students from different socioeconomic backgrounds but also their graduates’ average indebtedness. Class size, undergraduate academic reputation and how much colleges invest in instruction and student services are among the other data points U.S. 草莓传媒 collected to develop the latest set of rankings.
- 10 most, least expensive private colleges
- Key changes in how 2022 best colleges rankings were calculated
Changes to the Best Colleges Rankings
As with much of higher education itself, the prompted changes to the U.S. 草莓传媒 rankings. Last year marked the inclusion, for the first time, of test-blind schools — institutions that do not factor the SAT or ACT into admissions decisions — as COVID-19 drove widespread changes in standardized testing policies.
The data collected by U.S. 草莓传媒 for the latest rankings comes from schools surveyed in spring and summer of 2021, and ACT and SAT scores mostly reflect testing periods from 2019 to early 2020, prior to pandemic disruptions in the U.S.
However, to reflect the growth of test-optional policies among colleges, U.S. 草莓传媒 has slightly adjusted how ACT and SAT scores are reflected in the 2022 rankings rubric.
Also new this year is the introduction of rankings, based on the ratings of deans and senior faculty at programs that offer the Bachelor of Science in Nursing, or BSN. Nursing joins other discipline-specific rankings at the undergraduate level that U.S. 草莓传媒 computes, including computer science, engineering and business. In total, 694 programs are reflected in the new nursing rankings. This additional ranking arrives amid a surge of interest in the health fields and enrollment in nursing programs ticking up in 2020.
How Colleges Performed in the 2022 Rankings
The top 10 National Universities remain largely the same with some minor fluctuations and one new entrant. in New Jersey is again No. 1, and in New York, in Massachusetts and the are tied at No. 2. Columbia moved up one spot from No. 3 last year, while MIT improved from a tie at No. 4. in Connecticut moved down from a tie at No. 4 last year to No. 5 for 2022.
in California and the remain tied at No. 6. The stayed at No. 8, and four colleges are tied at No. 9: , in North Carolina, in Maryland and in Illinois. While ranks for Caltech, Johns Hopkins and Northwestern are the same as last year, Duke is the only new school to crack the top 10, moving up from No. 12 in the prior edition of the rankings.
The top 50 National Universities bear resemblance to last year’s, with no school moving up or down by more than three or four spots. For schools in the top 100, the greatest jump was shared by and in New York, both moving up eight spots from a tie at No. 76 to a tie at No. 68. The saw the largest drop within the top 100, slipping 13 spots from a tie at No. 80 to a tie at No. 93.
Looking beyond the top 100 schools, other examples of dramatic shifts include in New York climbing 71 spots from a tie at No. 284 to a tie at No. 213, and dropping 33 spots from a tie at No. 206 to a tie at No. 239.
The rankings of National Liberal Arts Colleges also held mostly steady at the very top, with in Massachusetts at No. 1, in Massachusetts at No. 2 and in Pennsylvania at No. 3 — all retaining the same spots as in the prior edition of the rankings.
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Rounding out the top 10 are in California still at No. 4; in Massachusetts at No. 5, down one spot from last year; in Maine and the in Maryland again tied at No. 6; in California at No. 8, a slight dip from a tie at No. 6 last year; and in Minnesota and in Vermont once again tied at No. 9.
Two schools previously tied at No. 9 exited the top 10 this year, with in Virginia falling to a tie in the No. 11 spot, and in New York moving down to a tie at No. 13. Overall, the biggest move up the National Liberal Arts Colleges rankings came from in Illinois, which climbed 34 spots from a tie at No. 93 to a tie at No. 59. The biggest drop came from the , which fell 16 spots from a tie at No. 120 to a tie at No. 136.
Little changed among top , which are schools that offer bachelor’s degrees, some master’s programs and limited options at the doctoral level. In the North, in Rhode Island solely claimed the No. 1 spot, while in Massachusetts dropped from a tie at No. 1 to No. 2 this year. Elsewhere, in Florida retained the No. 1 ranking in the South as did in Indiana in the Midwest and in Texas in the West.
Among , schools that focus on undergraduate education but award fewer than half of their degrees in liberal arts fields, the in Connecticut remains No. 1 in the North, as do in North Carolina in the South and in Montana in the West. The Midwest is the only category with a new No. 1, with in Missouri and in Indiana displacing in Missouri in a tie at the top. Taylor University was previously No. 2 and College of the Ozarks was tied at No. 4. Cottey College is now No. 4.
Additional College Rankings to Consider
Beyond geographic location and institutional type, U.S. 草莓传媒 ranks colleges in other groupings, such as .
Rankings for these colleges and universities — operated and partially funded by state governments — did not change for the top three National Universities. The is again the No. 1 top public school in its category, followed by the at No. 2 and the at No. 3.
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U.S. 草莓传媒 also ranks , which weighs a college’s academic quality alongside the net cost of attendance for a student who received the average level of need-based financial aid. A reshuffling of the ranks finds Yale at No. 1 among National Universities, up from No. 4 last year, followed by MIT at No. 2 and Harvard — last year’s No. 1 — now at No. 3. While these highly selective schools may appear expensive on paper, Yale, for instance, offered need-based grants to 57% of students, bringing the average cost of attendance for those recipients down to $18,826 in 2020-2021, well below the sticker price of $57,700 that year.
Other rankings include the , schools that award federal financial aid benefits specific to veterans and active service members, and enrolled a critical mass of such students; and , colleges that enrolled and graduated large proportions of economically disadvantaged students who were awarded federal Pell Grants.
U.S. 草莓传媒 also offers tools to and colleges and explore a vast range of data available on school profile pages, including detailed information on tuition, application fees and deadlines, popular majors and financial aid. College-bound students and their families can also compare postgraduate salary data collected by PayScale, which is displayed on many U.S. 草莓传媒 school profile pages. Other tools include a free and .
Looking for full rankings information? Access the to find all published data points, including student debt and employment statistics.
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