These 15 FL Colleges Among Top 10 In America, According To Wall Street Journal

FLORIDA — Fifteen Florida colleges and universities are named among the 500 "Best Colleges In The U.S." for 2025, in a newly-released ranking by The Wall Street Journal and College Pulse.

The study ranks these Sunshine State colleges, and the others on the list, by how well they set graduates up for financial success — and also takes students' overall satisfaction and personal recommendations into account.

“Our ranking measures how well each college sets graduates up for financial success,” according to the Journal. “We look at how much a school improves students’ chances of graduating and their future earnings, balancing these outcomes with feedback from students on college life. We don’t measure reputation, nor the college’s own finances.”

Here are the Florida colleges, including their overall rank and their score out of 100:

• No. 77 Florida International University, Miami, score of 78.2
• No. 83 University of Florida, Gainesville, score of 77.7
• No. 170 University of North Florida, Jacksonville, score of 70.1
• No. 199 Florida State University, Tallahassee, score of 67.6
• No. 207 Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, score of 66.9
• No. 231 University of Miami, Coral Gables, score of 64.5
• No. 250 University of South Florida, Tampa, score of 62.8
• No. 263 Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, score of 61.5
• No. 274 University of Central Florida, Orlando, score of 60.7
• No. 355 Rollins College, Winter Park, score of 53.3
• No. 364 Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, score of 52.2
• No. 421 Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, Tallahassee, score of 44.5
• No. 447 University of Tampa, score of 41.2
• No. 485 Flagler College, St. Augustine, score of 33.7
• No. 498 Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, score of 27.6

"The colleges in this ranking have found many ways to set their students up to succeed," study authors said.

Within the ranking, colleges are also listed based on student experience, best salaries for recent graduates, social mobility, and best value.

These are the top 10 colleges nationally, according to the WSJ list:

1. Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
2. Babson College, Wellesley, MA
3. Stanford University, Stanford, CA
4. Yale University, New Haven, CT
5. Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, CA
6. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
7. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
8. University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
9. Georgia Institute of Technology, Main Campus, Atlanta, GA
10. Davidson College, Davidson, NC

Their study includes a number of well-known schools and some lesser-known campuses, ranking both public and private colleges, as well as technical schools and liberal arts institutions. Each school was given a score out of 100, with student outcomes making 70 percent of the score.

The learning environment on campus (20 percent) and the diversity of the student body (10 percent) are also included — with the study taking inclusion of students with lower family earnings and with disabilities into account for the diversity portion.

Read more from the Journal.