Princeton tops U.S. national university rankings for 9th consecutive year

Princeton University has kept its No. 1 spot in college rankings released by U.S. News and World Report for nine consecutive years.

According to U.S. News’ rankings announced Monday (local time) based on data from around 1,400 universities and colleges in the United States, Harvard University ranked second, followed by Columbia University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Yale University, which tied for third place. Stanford University, University of Chicago, and University of Pennsylvania tied for sixth, while Northwestern University, Duke University, and Johns Hopkins University ranked at 10th.

The rankings went on to include the California Institute of Technology and Dartmouth College (tied for 12th), Brown University (14th), University of Notre Dame and Vanderbilt University (tied for 15th), Cornell University and Rice University (tied for 17th), Washington University in St. Louis (19th), and University of California, Los Angeles (20th).

The American media company also released the rankings of Liberal Arts Colleges, Top Public Schools, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Williams College topped the list of Liberal Arts Colleges for the 17th consecutive year, followed by Amherst College (2nd), Swarthmore College and Wellesley College (tied for 3rd). In the meantime, UCLA was named the Top Public School in the latest report, trailed by UC Berkeley and University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs rankings were led by MIT, Stanford, and UC Berkeley.

Among Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), which refer to schools established before 1964 with the intention of primarily educating African-American students, Spelman College was atop the list, followed by Howard University, and Xavier University of Louisiana.

Meanwhile, U.S. News introduced “Social Mobility” rankings in this year’s edition for the first time, which recognize colleges and universities that are “more successful than others at advancing social mobility by enrolling and graduating large proportions of disadvantaged students.” UC Riverside, UC Santa Cruz, and UC Irvine earned the highest places on the list. Kim Castro, editor and chief content officer of U.S. News, said that the company has made efforts to collect and analyze data from each school for the past three decades. “In that time, we’ve found the best institutions to be ones committed to academically and financially supporting their students through graduation,” he added.


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