Forbes: 25 Illinois Schools Make Top Colleges List

ILLINOIS — New college rankings from Forbes Magazine name 650 schools, including 25 in Illinois, that it says are the best in the country for 2019.

Names like Harvard, Stanford and Yale predictably topped Forbes’ list. The magazine says that whether a school ranks among the top 10 or is closer to the bottom, the institutions “count as the best in the country.” Forbes’ annual rankings looks at colleges that “deliver the top academics, career success and lowest debt.”

Here’s how Illinois colleges were ranked on Forbes’ list:

• 386: Augustana College
• 598: Aurora University
• 558: Benedictine University
• 304: Bradley University
• 244: DePaul University
• 488: Elmhurst College
• 539: Illinois College
• 208: Illinois Institute of Technology
• 340: Illinois State University
• 233: Illinois Wesleyan University
• 331: Knox College
• 415: Lake Forest College
• 248: Loyola University Chicago
• 620: Millikin University
• 624: Monmouth College
• 448: North Central College
• 621: Northern Illinois University
• 17: Northwestern University
• 629: Southern Illinois University Carbondale
• 563: Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
• 16: University of Chicago
• 279: University of Illinois, Chicago
• 68: University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
• 634: Western Illinois University
• 122: Wheaton College (IL)

The top 10 colleges on Forbes’ list are:

1. Harvard University
2. Stanford University
3. Yale University
4. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
5. Princeton University
6. University of Pennsylvania
7. Brown University
8. California Institute of Technology
9. Duke University
10. Dartmouth College

The methodology behind the rankings looks at five categories: alumni salary, student satisfaction, debt, on-time graduation rate and academic success. (Read more about Forbes’ methodology)