Forbes has released its eighth annual ranking of America’s top colleges.
Forbes rates schools on an ROI scale with points for low debt, high graduation rates, student satisfaction and career success; letter grades are used for fiscal soundness, and there is also a ranking of alumni giving.
According to the ranking, Pomona College in Claremont, Calif. Ranked No. 1. The small private liberal arts college has 1,610 students and a total annual cost of $62,632 for students to attend. It has 47 majors and 600 classes.
In Texas, Rice University in Houston ranked No. 32, while the University of Texas at Austin was No. 82.
Southern Methodist University was the top North Texas school, ranked at No. 108, while Texas Christian University was No. 210.
Here is some data from the new report:
• 18 million undergraduate students will pay an estimated total $18,943 on college tuition and costs ($42,429 for private schools).
• An average newly minted grad with student loan debt will have to pay back approximately $35,000; overall national student debt has escalated to an all-time high of $1.2 trillion.
• The Top 10 fall into two geographic locations: they are on the East or West Coast.
• They all have very low student/ faculty ratio with the highest at 11:1; the lowest at 6:1.
• They have high retention rates. Stanford and Yale have the highest, with only 1% leaving/ transferring to another school.
• They have high four-year graduation rates. 84% or more graduate in four years.
• They are all old schools. Pomona College is the newest, founded in 1887.
Inside the report:
• Revenge of the Philosophy Majors (p. 70) – In Silicon Valley brilliant coding and engineering is a given. The real value added increasingly comes from the people who can sell and humanize. Tech startups suddenly crave liberal arts majors.
• Incubators for Poets – Small liberal arts colleges are reinventing themselves as entrepreneur hatcheries—both for billion-dollar startups and for social change makers.
For the complete ranking, methodology and more, visit: www.forbes.com/top-colleges.
Here’s the Texas list:
Texas Rice University 32 1
Texas University of Texas, Austin 82 2
Texas Trinity University (Texas) 100 3
Texas Southern Methodist University 108 4
Texas Texas A&M University 150 5
Texas Southwestern University 194 6
Texas Baylor University 197 7
Texas Texas Christian University 210 8
Texas University of Dallas 257 9
Texas Austin College 286 10
Texas University of Houston 358 11
Texas Texas Tech University 403 12
Texas St. Mary’s University (Texas) 432 13
Texas St. Edward’s University 439 14
Texas University of Texas, Dallas 446 15
Texas University of Texas, El Paso 491 16
Texas Abilene Christian University 513 17
Texas University of Texas, Pan American 517 18
Texas Texas State University 555 19
Texas University of North Texas 570 20
Texas Texas Woman’s University 591 21
Texas Sam Houston State University 598 22
Texas University of Texas, Arlington 601 23
Texas Texas A&M University, Kingsville 620 24
Texas Lamar University 624 25
Texas Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi 632 26
Texas University of Texas, San Antonio 642 27
Texas Texas A&M University, Commerce 643 28
The top rankings
1 Pomona College, CA
2 Williams College, MA
3 Stanford University, CA
4 Princeton University, NJ
5 Yale University, CT
6 Harvard University, MA
7 Swarthmore College, PA
8 Brown University, RI
9 Amherst College, MA
10 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MA