Here Are The 2022-2023 Best Colleges In America, Ranked By U.S. News

ACROSS AMERICA — Princeton University in New Jersey and Williams College in Massachusetts are the country’s top national universities and liberal arts colleges, respectively, according to new 2022-2023 Best Colleges rankings released Monday by U.S. News & World Report.

Among public universities, the University of California’s Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses tied for top honors in the ranking, and the U.S. Naval Academy scored as the top public liberal arts college.

U.S. News has been publishing the respected guide for prospective students and families for nearly 40 years. Methodology has changed over the years to reflect changes in higher education, Kim Castro, editor and chief content officer at U.S. News, said in a news release.

U.S. News touts its ranking for providing millions of parents with “useful data and information to help with one of life’s biggest decisions,” Castro said.

U.S. News ranked 1,500 colleges and universities across 17 academic measures. To rank colleges, U.S. News first places each school into a category based on its mission and, in some cases, its geographic location.

National universities, which focus on research and offer several doctoral programs, are ranked separately from liberal arts colleges.

Overall, the top three schools in each category are:

National Universities

1. Princeton University (New Jersey)
2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
3. Tie: Harvard University (Massachusetts), Stanford University (California) and Yale University (Connecticut)

National Liberal Arts Colleges

1. Williams College (Massachusetts)
2. Amherst College (Massachusetts)
3. Pomona College (California)

National Universities (Public)

1. Tie: University of California, Berkeley, and University of California, Los Angeles

3. Tie: University of Michigan – Ann Arbor and University of Virginia

National Liberal Arts Colleges (Public)

1. United States Naval Academy
2. United States Military Academy at West Point
3. United States Air Force Academy

Top Performers on Social Mobility — National Universities

1. Keiser University (Florida)
2. University of California, Riverside
3. California State University – Long Beach

Top Performers on Social Mobility — National Liberal Arts Colleges

1. Salem College (North Carolina)
2. Lake Forest College (Illinois)
3. Tougaloo College (Mississippi)

To compile the rankings, U.S. News focuses on academic quality and places emphasis on outcome measures, including graduation rates, retention rates, graduate indebtedness and social mobility. Graduation rates and other outcomes represent 40 percent of each school’s overall score.

U.S. News said it changed how it weights SAT and ACT scores because demand for the college entrance exams plummeted due to the pandemic, especially among students living in low-income households.

Part-time faculty members were considered in measures on faculty resources, reflecting a trend for more part-time instructors, U.S. News said. Previously, only full-time instructors were considered.

Read more about the methodology.