US News College Rankings: There are numerous factors that drive a student’s decision to attend a particular college or university. Among the most important are academic reputation, cost of attendance, and return on investment—insights backed by surveys like Why Higher Ed? by Strada and Gallup, and the Factors That Influence Student College Choice by the U.S. Department of Education.
The US News College Ranking, now in their 40th year, reflect these priorities by evaluating schools based on key data. Top-ranking institutions are recognized for offering substantial academic resources, achieving high graduation rates, and ensuring their graduates enter the workforce with manageable debt and promising starting salaries.
The Mission
But beyond rankings, personal preferences also play a vital role. Students often consider aspects like available majors, extracurricular activities, and campus culture. To help with this, US news college rankings complements its rankings with detailed school profiles, user reviews, and advanced search tools to explore potential matches. It also offers specialized lists, such as the Best Value Schools and schools known for diversity.
These rankings serve as a comprehensive guide to finding schools that meet both academic standards and personal needs, aligning with U.S. News’ commitment to providing data-driven insights and advice to aid important life decisions.
Eligibility
This focus is reflected in both the ranking criteria and eligibility requirements for inclusion in the overall rankings.
To qualify for the rankings, schools must meet the following criteria:
- Be located within the U.S.
- Hold regional accreditation
- Have at least 100 enrolled undergraduate students
- Have a six-year graduation rate for full-time, first-year bachelor’s degree-seeking students
- Actively accept applications from new first-year students
Even if a school doesn’t meet all ranking criteria—such as those that are highly specialized or don’t have a graduation rate—these institutions are still profiled on the U.S. News website and may appear in specific discipline-focused rankings or other lists. On the other hand, institutions without accreditation, those in the process of closing, or schools that predominantly offer distance education programs are not profiled. However, accredited schools offering online baccalaureate programs are featured in the Best Online Bachelor’s Programs rankings.
Notably, a school’s eligibility for ranking isn’t dependent on its participation in U.S. News surveys, although most institutions do provide data. In fact, 99 of the top 100 National Universities and 96 of the top 100 National Liberal Arts Colleges reported their data to U.S. News.
How Ranks Are Determined
US News College Rankings evaluated nearly 1,500 four-year bachelor’s degree-granting institutions across 10 distinct overall rankings, each designed to compare schools with similar academic missions:
- National Universities offer a wide range of undergraduate programs, along with master’s and doctoral degrees, and are noted for faculty research or professional doctorate programs.
- National Liberal Arts Colleges concentrate almost entirely on undergraduate education, awarding at least half of their degrees in the arts and sciences.
- Regional Universities provide a mix of undergraduate and master’s degrees but typically offer few, if any, doctoral programs. They are ranked by geographic regions: North, South, Midwest, and West.
- Regional Colleges emphasize undergraduate education but offer fewer than 50% of their degrees in liberal arts. Some also grant associate degrees alongside bachelor’s degrees and are ranked by region in the same four areas.
For the third consecutive year, these groupings were aligned with the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education’s 2021 update to its Basic Classification system.
Each ranking was based on a set of key factors, with schools receiving scores based on how their data compared to all other ranked institutions. These scores were standardized, meaning they reflected not just head-to-head comparisons but how each school performed relative to all ranked schools. After standardizing, the values were weighted, combined, and rescaled, with the top-performing schools in each category receiving a score of 100. Other schools’ scores were placed on a 0-99 scale, representing how they compared to the top performers.
Schools ranking outside the top 90% still received a ranking but were listed within a broader range (e.g., No. 118-130) rather than an exact rank (e.g., No. 126), reflecting their position in the lower decile.
The Ranking Factors
While the core formula remains largely consistent with previous years, some notable updates have been made. These adjustments, combined with shifts in individual schools’ data, can lead to significant changes in rankings from year to year.
For those looking to explore the details of the ranking methodology—including the new factors introduced—check out the article, A More Detailed Look at the Ranking Factors. Additionally, the Morse Code: Inside the College Rankings blog offers expert insights and behind-the-scenes reasoning for these updates.
Outcomes
In the 2025 U.S. News rankings, over half of a school’s rank now hinges on outcome measures that gauge how well schools support students from diverse backgrounds in enrolling, staying in school, graduating, and achieving postgraduation success—all while managing debt.
Key ranking factors include:
- Graduation Rates (16%): This reflects the proportion of students earning their bachelor’s degrees within six years, based on a four-year rolling average from the 2014-2017 entering classes.
- First-Year Retention Rates (5%): This tracks how many first-year students return for their second year, averaged across the 2019-2022 academic years.
- Social Mobility: This metric evaluates schools on how successfully they graduate economically disadvantaged students, specifically focusing on Pell Grant recipients.
- Pell Graduation Rates (5.5%): This four-year rolling average assesses the six-year graduation rates of students who received Pell Grants, with more credit given to schools serving larger proportions of Pell students.
- Pell Graduation Performance (5.5%): This compares graduation rates of Pell Grant recipients to non-Pell students, rewarding schools where Pell students perform on par with or better than their peers, especially if Pell students make up a significant proportion of the population.
- Borrower Debt (5%): This evaluates the average federal loan debt accumulated by graduates, using data from the College Scorecard, based on the 2019-2021 period.
These measures collectively emphasize a school’s ability to support students not only through graduation but also in minimizing debt and maximizing postgraduation opportunities, providing a well-rounded view of institutional performance.
College grads earning more than a high school graduate (5%)
US News College Rankings factor evaluates the percentage of a school’s federal loan recipients who graduated in the 2014-2015 or 2015-2016 academic years and, by 2020 or 2021—five years post-graduation—were earning more than the average salary of a high school graduate, as reported by the College Scorecard. Schools received a perfect score if 95% or more of their graduates met this earnings threshold, while others were scored based on how close they came to reaching 95%.
In this edition, the assessment period shifted from four years after graduation to five, and the benchmark for a perfect score increased from 90% to 95%. This change provides a more rigorous measure of postgraduation financial success, reflecting the longer-term impact of a college degree on earnings potential.
Michel Harm
