How Forbes Ranks America's Best Colleges
A behind-the-scenes look at how Forbes picks the best 500 colleges out of thousands considered each year. We focus on academic, financial and career outcomes.| Forbes
These colleges—spread from Pennsylvania to Kentucky to Michigan—discount their listed cost of attendance by at least 50% for all, or nearly all, students.| Emma Whitford
These small schools offer top academics, plus greater access to faculty and more protection from federal funding cuts, than at big research universities.| Emma Whitford
Along with academic fit, cost, and career outcomes, students now need to consider the impact of the federal assault on research funding, foreign students and “woke” colleges.| Emma Whitford
A behind-the-scenes look at how Forbes picks the best 500 colleges out of thousands considered each year. We focus on academic, financial and career outcomes.| Forbes
You’re not imagining things: The Ivy League is forfeiting its standing as America’s producer of great talent. Here are the schools producing the hard-working high achievers that employers crave.| Forbes
We fed ChatGPT, OpenAI’s new natural language tool, college essay questions for the 2022-2023 academic year. Here’s what it wrote.| Forbes
Prof Jim aims to make it cheap and easy for textbook publishers to create videos narrated by famous avatars, complete with slides and pop quizzes.| Forbes
TeachFX raised $10 million in a Series A funding round to expand use of its app that provides feedback to teachers—confidentially.| Forbes
After two years of Zoom classes, colleges are warming to the idea of holding classes in the metaverse. With $150 million invested, Facebook parent, Meta, is leading the charge.| Forbes
The ASU+GSV Summit drew 15,000 attendees to San Diego this year. Its new owner aims to replicate that event abroad.| Emma Whitford
A new report from the Center for American Progress shows that President Donald Trump’s effort to punish “woke” colleges by terminating research grants is harming universities in both red and blue states.| Forbes
The budget bill signed into law by President Donald Trump will dramatically increase endowment taxes for about a dozen private universities. But that’s just part of their problems.| Emma Whitford
While 11 schools, including Princeton, MIT, Yale and Harvard. were hit with a higher tax on their endowments, Congress exempted wealthy small schools, including Swarthmore, Amherst, Hillsdale and CalTech, from the levy.| Emma Whitford
Education experts say it will stick colleges with burdensome taxes and strip away critical student protections, but the Senate version did soften some of the House’s most damaging proposals.| Forbes
International students have become the lifeblood of these 16 private nonprofit colleges. Trump’s crackdown on student visas threatens their existence.| Forbes
The pause on new J-1 visa appointments had already thrown a wrench in medical residencies, and now M.D.s from 19 countries may not be able to enter the U.S. at all, exacerbating the doctor shortage.| Emma Whitford
The threat of federal funding cutbacks turned 2024 into a record year for higher education bond issuance. 2025 is on track to beat it.| Emma Whitford
Hundreds of young foreign-educated doctors who matched to American residency programs could miss their start date as the Trump administration puts all new visa appointments on hold.| Forbes
The Trump administration and House are pushing forward policies that will benefit for-profit colleges and open up the potential for the sort of abuses that have marked the industry in the past.| Emma Whitford
In addition to raising the endowment tax rate for the richest schools to as much as 21%, the bill hits schools with heavy foreign student enrollment.| Forbes
The traditional May 1 decision deadline has come and gone, but it’s not too late to find a college match—here are dozens of excellent schools still seeking students for the upcoming fall semester.| Emma Whitford
Not only Harvard will pay. As Republicans hunt for revenues, the tax on private college endowments could be raised and broadened. We found 127 schools that might be vulnerable.| Forbes
Venture capitalists predict artificial intelligence, virtual reality and video-learning startups will dominate the space in 2023.| Forbes
In a new executive order, Trump paves the way for an overhaul of the network of agencies that assure quality in higher education.| Forbes
As the Trump administration cracks down arbitrarily on student visas and xenophobic rhetoric scares away potential foreign students, agencies specializing in recruiting foreign students are in peril.| Forbes
The president has frozen federal research funding for a host of American colleges and universities—even issuing specific demands of some top schools in exchange for federal dollars. These 39 institutions have the wherewithal to join Harvard in its resistance to Trump’s assault.| Emma Whitford
Trump’s new policies will hit college budgets hard. Top schools could get away with increasing their prices, but everyone else will have to cut their way to solvency.| Forbes
Despite large endowments, taxable municipals provide operating liquidity while colleges wait for clarity on federal support for research.| Forbes
While the Trump administration continues its assault on elite colleges like Columbia and Harvard, smaller, lesser known institutions that have thrived in part by attracting students from outside the United States gird themselves for an uncertain future.| Forbes
It’s impossible to ignore the mounting criticisms of the Ivy League. These 20 schools are stepping up to educate the country’s brightest students and graduating the talent employers seek.| Forbes
Online two-year college Campus offers its students a top flight associate degree in business for a community college price.| Forbes
Federal funding pays for everything from PhD salaries to tech equipment. For many endowment rich elite schools like Harvard and MIT, it may be time to tap billion dollar nest eggs.| Forbes
Post-pandemic college tours are back and in high demand. Here’s how to navigate the fall visiting season.| Forbes
Binghamton University isn’t on the radar for most applicants outside of New York State. But with a new advanced battery and energy tech research push and thriving schools of nursing and pharmacy, it should be.| Forbes
By luring tech companies to Atlanta while simultaneously growing its enrollment, the Georgia Institute Of Technology is creating a super-sized rival to MIT, Caltech and Stanford and fueling Silicon Valley South.| Forbes
Growth in taxpayer-funded education savings accounts could be a lifeline for edtech companies that see their public school and district customers walking away with the end of pandemic funding.| Forbes
A behind-the-scenes look at how Forbes picks the best 500 colleges out of thousands considered each year.| Forbes
Great access to faculty members, high post-graduate salaries and a good return on your investment make these gems worth considering.| Forbes
Forbes identified 20 colleges—ten public and ten private—that attract the brightest students and produce graduates employers rate highly.| Forbes
These 25 schools have high sticker prices, but they offer financial aid to all or nearly all of their students, which cuts the total cost at least in half.| Forbes
These state universities stand out as schools that offer students high earning potential with low debt burdens and a great return on their investment.| Forbes
Ultra-selective schools get outsized buzz, but there are plenty of excellent schools that accept 30% or more of applicants. Thirty-eight of them rank in Forbes’ top 100.| Forbes
It’s no surprise that Princeton and Harvard made the top 25 colleges, but despite California's woes, four of its public universities did so too.| Forbes
Deciding where to apply this fall? Forget your prospective college’s football team, the financial health of your target school is more important than ever.| Forbes
The Ivy League is losing its standing as America’s producer of great talent. Here are the schools producing the hard-working high achievers that employers crave.| Forbes
More states are now giving money to families who pull their kids out of public school, creating a pot that can be spent on online learning and microschool programs.| Forbes
Programs offering “direct admissions”—without a formal application—are spreading. The trend could accelerate in the the wake of the Supreme Court decision killing affirmative action.| Forbes
