Here Are Illinois' 25 Best Colleges For The 2023 School Year: Report

ILLINOIS — Three of the county’s top 30 colleges or universities call Illinois home, including two which cracked the Top 20 of the best of the best, according to Niche's "2023 Best Colleges Rankings," which was released Monday.

Northwestern, the University of Chicago, and the University of Illinois-Champaign all were named to the Top 100, according to the rankings, which assign letter grades to each institution of higher learning. Both Northwestern (No. 14 overall) and the University of Chicago (No. 16) received A+ rankings from Niche as did the University of Illinois, which ranked 59th overall on the list.

Niche — a website known for its extensive rankings of schools, universities, and communities — updated data for 4,050 colleges nationwide, releasing rankings with a different methodology "to better evaluate an institution’s return on investment," according to the platform.

"Even before the pandemic, high school students and their families were questioning the value of higher education, in large part due to how expensive it’s become in the past 20 years or so," said Niche Principal Strategist Ryan Bell. "Our updates to our 'Value' methodology come at a time when prospective college students are more intent on choosing a school that will yield a good return on investment than ever before."

Nationwide, Niche's list of the nation's best colleges ranks the Massachusetts Institute of Technology first, Stanford University (second), Harvard University (third), Yale University (fourth), and Princeton University (fifth).

Here are Niche's top schools across Illinois, along with the grades the platform gave each school:

1. Northwestern University, A+

2. University of Chicago, A+

3. University of Illinois, A+

4. Wheaton College, A

5. DePaul University, A-

6. Illinois Wesleyan, A-

7. University of Illinois-Chicago, A-

8. Moody Bible Institute, A-

9. Lake Forest College, A-

10. Loyola University-Chicago, A-

11. Augustana College, B+

12. Illinois University of Technology, B+

13. North Park University, B+

14. Trinity Christian College, B+

15. University of St. Francis, B

16. Elmhurst University, B

17. Illinois State University, B

18. North Central College, B

19. Southern Illinois University, B

20. University of Illinois-Springfield, B

21. Knox College, B

22. McKendree College, B

23. Bradley University, B

24. Eastern Illinois University, B

25. Lewis University, B

Several other Illinois colleges received grades but didn't make the state's top tier of schools. Users can click any institution on the lists for further details.

Niche's analysis includes factors such as academics, campus, food, and diversity. The website combined data from the U.S. Department of Education and nearly 500,000 college reviews from students. See more about Niche's methodology.

With more data and tools available than ever, Niche seeks to provide students and parents with additional power to navigate the college search process. The platform also broke down rankings by major, type of institution, and admissions standards.

But some educational experts warn against overvaluing college rankings when selecting or evaluating an institution. Some of the issues with university rankings include the downgrading of colleges with less of a budget to promote themselves, important factors that can't be quantified, and subjective reputational factors that often influence placement, writes Alexandru Pop of Studyportals.

Two businesses emerged in the 1980s that changed higher education: the test-prep business — largely shaped by Stanley Kaplan, who founded Kaplan, Inc. — and the start of the U.S. News & World Report rankings, according to Business Insider.

U.S. News began evaluating universities based on the test scores of admitted students, which prompted colleges to desire more applicants who tested high. The universities offered merit-based scholarships and financial incentives to students who tested high. As a result, affluent parents of college applicants paid for test prep for their children to get those incentives.

The publication, which remains a behemoth for college rankings, has updated its methodology since. But academic performance remains the focus in U.S. News rankings, with the media outlet ranking institutions on 17 measures of academic quality. U.S. News will release its 2022-23 college rankings on Sept. 12.