University Of Chicago Among Best Colleges For 2018: U.S. News & World Report

The new school year is in full swing, and as high school seniors plan the next big step in their lives, their attention is no doubt on 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 national university for the seventh year in a row.

Princeton is trailed by Harvard University, which comes in at second place, and the University of Chicago is the third best national university, 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.

Besides the University of Chicago, Illinois charted two more schools in the magazine's top 100 national universities for 2018 (Northwestern University in a three-way tie at No. 11 and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign tied at No. 52). Three schools in the state made the top 100 national liberal arts universities (Wheaton College tied at No. 63 and Illinois Wesleyan and Knox College as part of a five-way tie for No. 71). (Get Patch real-time email alerts for the latest news for Hyde Park and Chicago — or other neighborhoods. And iPhone users: Check out Patch's new app.)

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.

Illinois had a strong showing among the Midwest's top regional universities, which U.S. News defines as institutions that offer few doctoral programs and draw mainly from surrounding states. Four Illinois schools made the magazine's overall list in that category, and four schools in the state were among the top 15 best public regional universities in the Midwest.

The top 5 national universities in the country 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)

The top 5 national liberal arts colleges are:

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

The top 5 national universities among public schools are:

• University of California Berkeley (1)
• University of California Los Angeles (1)
• University of Virginia (3)
• University of Michigan Ann Arbor (4)
• University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (5)

The top 5 national liberal arts colleges among public schools are:

• United States Military Academy at West Point (1)
• United States Naval Academy (2)
• United States Air Force Academy (3)
• Virginia Military Institute (4)
• St. Mary’s College of Maryland (5)

In its rankings, U.S. News also 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, it turns out, 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.

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.

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

University of Chicago (Photo by Michael Barera | Wikimedia Commons)

Like What You're Reading? Stay Patched In!

• Like our Crime page on Facebook
• Check out the Events Calendar for what’s going on