Here Are Michigan's Best Colleges

A new report has ranked 500 colleges nationwide — including 18 in Michigan — as high schoolers scramble to sign up for SAT exams and fill out college applications. The personal finance website WalletHub unveiled its 2019 college and university rankings Monday. The top schools in America won’t shock you (the usual suspects are all there) and the authors say the best university in Michigan is none other than the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. It ranked No. 28 in the country.

The study compared 951 higher-education institutions across the country based on 30 metrics. The metrics range from student-faculty ratio to graduation rate to post-attendance median salary. WalletHub then organized the results by ranking each college in seven categories: student selectivity, cost and financing, faculty resources, campus safety, campus experience, educational outcomes and career outcomes.

The other colleges to make the list from Michigan include Michigan Technological University, Michigan State University, University of Detroit Mercy, Lawrence Technological University, Kuyper College, Calvin College, Albion College, Hope College, Andrews University, Kettering University, Eastern Michigan University, Alma College, Ferris State University, the University of Michigan-Flint, Grand Valley State University, Central Michigan University and Lake Superior State University.

WalletHub scored each of the seven metrics out of 100 possible points, with a 100 being the best school performance and the most favorable conditions for undergraduate students while they’re in school and after leaving. The authors then determined each school’s weighted average across each metric to calculate the overall score and used that to rank them. Public four-year and above schools were included as well as private, not-for-profit, four-year and above schools.

Student selectivity and educational outcomes received the most weight of all the categories in WalletHub’s rankings, accounting for 25 and 20 points, respectively. Student selectivity was largely based on net cost while educational outcomes looked mostly at a college’s graduation rate and retention rate.

You’ll recognize most, if not all, of the top schools in America. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, better known as MIT, boasted the top overall ranking with a total score of 80.1. Princeton, Yale, Harvard and California Institute of Technology rounded out the top five.

Here are the top 10 schools and overall scores for each. All were in the 99th percentile.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Overall rank: 1
• Total score: 80.1/100 points

Princeton University

• Overall rank: 2
• Total score: 79.5/100 points

Yale University

• Overall rank: 3
• Total score:78.86/100 points

Harvard University

• Overall rank: 4
• Total score: 78.58/100 points

California Institute of Technology

• Overall rank: 5
• Total score: 77.73/100 points

Duke University

• Overall rank: 6
• Total score: 76.15/100 points

University of Pennsylvania

• Overall rank: 7
• Total score: 76.1/100 points

Columbia University

• Overall rank: 8
• Total score: 75.89/100 points

Rice University

• Overall rank: 9
• Total score: 75.67/100 points

Stanford University

• Overall rank: 10
• Total score: 75.32/100 points

WalletHub used data collected from National Center for Education Statistics, Council for Community and Economic Research, U.S. Department of Education, COLLEGEdata and PayScale.

Click here to read the full report.

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.
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