Best MA Colleges For 2018: U.S. News & World Report

MASSACHUSETTS – The school year is in full swing, and as high school seniors plan the next big step in their lives, they've turned their attention to what colleges best suit their educational and career ambitions. College rankings certainly play into that decision making as well, and for 2018, U.S. News & World Report has ranked Princeton University in New Jersey as the best university in America for the seventh year in a row.

Princeton is trailed by Harvard University, and the University of Chicago rounds out the top three national universities, according to U.S. News. For the 15th consecutive year, Williams College in Massachusetts ranked as the best national liberal arts college, followed in second place by another Massachusetts school, Amherst College. Massachusetts schools littered the top of the 2018 rankings with two of the top 10 national universities and three of the top 10 national liberal arts universities belonging to the Bay State.

Here are the top national universities in Massachusetts:

1. Harvard University, Cambridge (2)
2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (5)
3. Tufts University, Medford (29)
4. Boston College, Chestnut Hill (32)
5. Brandeis University, Waltham (34)
6. Boston University, Boston (37)
7. Northeastern University, Boston (40)
8. Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester (61)
9. University of Massachusetts - Amherst (75)
10. Clark University, Worcester (81)
11. University of Massachusetts - Lowell (156)
12. Lesley University, Cambridge (181)
13. Suffolk University, Boston (181)
14. University of Massachusetts - Boston (202)
15. University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth (207)

Massachusetts dominated this year's rankings of the best liberal arts colleges. Below are the top 5:

• Williams College (1)
• Amherst College (2)
• Bowdoin College (3)
• Swarthmore College (3)
• Wellesley College (3)

Click here for the full rankings of best liberal arts colleges.

Nationwide, the top 10 universities are:

• Princeton University (1)
• Harvard University (2)
• University of Chicago (3)
• Yale University (3)
• Columbia University (5)
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (5)
• Stanford University (5)
• University of Pennsylvania (8)
• Duke University (9)
• California Institute of Technology (10)

Click here for the full list of national universities.

Public schools — namely the California schools and U.S. military academies — made a strong showing in the 2018 rankings. The University of California in Los Angeles tied with the University of California in Berkeley for number one public school among national universities, and the United States Military Academy at West Point ranked as the top public school among national liberal arts colleges.

In its rankings, U.S. News took a look at student debt, and it turns out that 70 percent of students who graduate from Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., graduate with debt — the average amount of debt being $46,779 — the highest among national universities. For national liberal arts colleges, that number is highest among graduates of St. John’s University in Minnesota, where 66 percent of students graduate with debt with an average amount of debt of $40,272. Students from Princeton graduate with the least amount of debt among national universities, as do students of Berea College in Kentucky when it comes to national liberal arts colleges. (Localize here with student debt rates if noteworthy enough for your regions.)

U.S. News relies on various factors in determining the rankings, with retention, graduate rate performance and graduation rate accounting for 30 percent of the rankings.

“Graduation rate performance measures how well schools are graduating their students based on our predictions, which consider spending, test scores and the proportion of students receiving Pell Grants,” U.S. News explains.

Faculty resources account for 20 percent of the rankings — things like class size, student-to-faculty ratio — and financial resources — average spending on things that go directly toward educating undergraduates — accounts for 10 percent of the rankings. The rest of the rankings are based on expert opinion, student excellence and alumni giving.

U.S. News notes that the top national and top national liberal arts universities have significantly higher graduation and freshman retention rates than other schools. That’s a six-year graduation rate of 96 percent for the top 10 national universities and 92.5 percent for top 10 national liberal arts colleges, whereas that same figure for all numerically ranked national universities is 71.7 percent and 75.7 percent for national liberal arts colleges. Similarly, the freshman retention rate for top 10 national universities is 98.3 percent and 96.5 percent for top 10 national liberal arts colleges, compared to 87.2 percent for all numerically ranked national universities and 85.7 percent for all numerically ranked national liberal arts colleges, respectfully.

What do you think of the rankings? Let us know in the comments below.

Image Credit: Roger W via Flickr Creative Commons