Illinois Schools Make Forbes Top Colleges List

Two Illinois schools cracked the top 30 on Forbes' "America's Top Colleges List" for 2017, and several were among the magazine's rankings of top schools in the Midwest. The 2017 list, which was released on Wednesday, looks at what institutions give back to students for the money they spend on a college education.

This year's rankings, as Forbes explains, were created to better align with what the magazine values most: "superior return on investment; high impact, leadership and success; and a first-rate student-consumer experience."

The University of Chicago came in at No. 16 on the overall list and was No. 1 among universities in the Midwest. Meanwhile, Northwestern University came in at No. 28 overall and is rated the third-best school in the Midwest. Wheaton College also earned a spot among the top 25 Midwestern schools, coming in at No. 15.

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Forbes describes the rankings as "fiscally minded" and says they do not take into account things like campus atmosphere, Greek life, sports etc. The methodology favors variables like "alumni salary, graduation rate and student satisfaction." Post-graduate success accounted for 35 percent of the ranking; how effectively students at each school avoid or pay back student loan debt accounts for 20 percent of the rankings, as does the student experience. Graduation rate and academic success both account for 12.5 percent. (You can see the full methodology here.)

Find the full list of America's Top Colleges here. These are the top 25 colleges in the Midwest, according to Forbes. (Get Patch real-time email alerts for the latest news for Chicago — or your neighborhood. And iPhone users: Check out Patch's new app.)

1. University of Chicago
2. University of Notre Dame
3. Northwestern University
4. Washington University in St Louis
5. Carleton College
6. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
7. Oberlin College
8. Grinnell College
9. Kenyon College
10. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
11. University of Wisconsin-Madison
12. Macalester College
13. St Olaf College
14. Case Western Reserve University
15. Wheaton College
16. Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
17. DePauw University
18. Denison University
19. Ohio State University-Main Campus
20. Earlham College
21. University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
22. Kalamazoo College
23. Purdue University-Main Campus
24. Indiana University-Bloomington
25. Hillsdale College

Forbes also ranks the top schools in the Northeast (Harvard University), the top schools in the South (Duke), the top schools in the West (Stanford), the top public schools(United States Naval Academy) and the top private schools (Harvard).

Feroze Dhanoa (Patch National Staff) contributed to this article

University of Chicago/Photo by Robert Kozloff