Top Illinois Colleges in Forbes' 2016 Ranking: Which Has Best Return on Investment?

Four Illinois colleges were named to the Forbes top 100 colleges nationwide in 2016 when the business magazine released its annual rankings this week.

Leading the pack from the Land of Lincoln was Northwestern University, ranked 15th nationwide. The University of Chicago followed at No. 20 overall, and the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana (72nd) and Wheaton College (87th) followed in the top 100.

Over in Indiana, the University of Notre Dame saw the No. 13 slot in the list.

Forbes used data from the Department of Education, along with payscale.com and the America's Leaders List to compile the rankings on the top 660 schools. They rated each school on post-graduate success, student debt, student satisfaction, graduation rate and academic success.

Stanford University and Williams College, Princeton University were the top three overall. Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology followed to round out the top five.

Twenty-six Illinois colleges and universities made the list of 660.

Top Illinois Schools
national ranking in parentheses

1. Northwestern University (15)
2. University of Chicago (20)
3. University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (72)
4. Wheaton College (87)
5. Knox College (191)
6. Illinois Wesleyan University (234)
7. Bradley University (259)
8. Illinois Institute of Technology (264)
9. Loyola University Chicago (279)
10. DePaul University (280)
11. Lake Forest College (317)
12. Augustana College (331)
13. University of Illinois, Chicago (340)
14. Illinois State University (409)
15. Elmhurst College (462)
16. North Central College (493)
17. Millikin University (512)
18. Monmouth College (585)
19. Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (605)
20. Northern Illinois University (606)
21. Benedictine University (613)
22. Southern Illinois University Carbondale (618)
23. Aurora University (629)
24. Western Illinois University (630)
25. Illinois College (632)
26. Columbia College Chicago (643)

See the full Forbes list here