17 GA Colleges Ranked Among Top In U.S. For 2025

GEORGIA — Seventeen institutions in Georgia are among the 500 best public and private colleges and universities in the country, according to the 2025 rankings from The Wall Street Journal.

Georgia’s top school is the Georgia Institute of Technology, a public institution in Atlanta, according to The WSJ/College Pulse 2025 Best Colleges in the U.S. ranking. (See List Below).

The Wall Street Journal noted that in the ranking, half of the colleges in the top 50 are new to the list. But the top-ranked school remained unchanged from the previous ranking.

New Jersey’s Princeton University, a four-year Ivy League private school known for its rigorous academic standards and selectivity in admissions, topped the ranking for the second year in a row.

“Our ranking measures how well each college sets graduates up for financial success. 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,” The Journal wrote. “We don’t measure reputation, nor the college’s own finances.”

Georgia Tech is the sole school to rank in the top 50, peaking at No. 9 with a score of 85.8.

Other colleges from Georgia included in the full ranking are:

• Emory University, Atlanta, No. 103
• University of Georgia, Athens, No. 151
• Spelman College, Atlanta, No. 184
• Clayton State University, Morrow, No. 322
• Agnes Scott College, Decatur, No. 326
• Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, No. 339
• Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, No. 347
• Georgia College & State University, Milledgeville, No. 366
• Morehouse College, Atlanta, No. 407
• Valdosta State University, Valdosta, No. 408
• Mercer University, Macon, No. 411
• Dalton State College, Dalton, No. 430
• Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, No. 431
• Georgia State University, Atlanta, No. 472
• Savannah State University, Savannah, No. 488
• Clark Atlanta University, Atlanta, No. 489

The Journal said public schools are prominent among colleges that moved up in the rankings. Two are in the top 10 — the University of California, Berkeley at No. 8, and the Georgia Institute of Technology at No. 9. Last year, there were no public schools in the top 10.

The Journal developed the ranking in collaboration with research partners College Pulse and Statista.

Read more on the methodology and findings on The Wall Street Journal.