Tennessee's Best Colleges: 14 Make Forbes List

Vanderbilt came in No. 27 on Forbes' "America's Top Colleges List" for 2017, and 13 other Tennessee colleges were among the magazine's rankings of top schools. 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." (For more updates on this story and free news alerts for your neighborhood, sign up for your local Middle Tennessee Patch morning newsletter.)

"Undergraduates are attached to their campus, with an extraordinary 97 percent freshman-sophomore retention rate and a full 90% of students choosing to live on campus through senior year," the magazine wrote about Vanderbilt. "The feeling is mutual: Vanderbilt alumni can take advantage of career advising for two years after graduation."

Vanderbilt was the only Tennessee college in the top 100 with Memphis' Rhodes College the next highest-placed at 108. The highest ranked public college in the state — the University of Tennessee at Knoxville — was 243.

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.

Here are the colleges in Tennessee that made the list and their overall ranking:

• No. 27: Vanderbilt University, Nashville
• No. 108: Rhodes College, Memphis
• No. 134: The University of the South, Sewanee
• No. 243: The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
• No. 356: Belmont University, Nashville
• No. 373: Union University, Jackson
• No. 473: Tennessee Technological University, Cookeville
• No. 516: Christian Brothers University, Memphis
• No. 602: Maryville College
• No. 605: Fisk University, Nashville
• No. 624: Carson-Newman University, Jefferson City
• No. 625: Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro
• No. 635: The University of Memphis
• No. 642: East Tennessee State University, Johnson City

Image via Wikimedia Commons user Dansans444, used under Creative Commons