Ranking: Stanford Tops Wall Street Journal’s 2025 Best Colleges In America

Wharton Launches New AI for Business MBA Major + Undergrad Concentration

The Wharton School’s Huntsman Hall at the University of Pennsylvania. Courtesy photo

WSJ METHODOLOGY

WSJ has published its college rankings since 2016 along with its research partners College Pulse and Statista. It aims to evaluate how well U.S. colleges and universities prepare students for financial success, focusing on measurable outcomes such as graduation rates and post-graduate earnings.

The newspaper made significant changes to its methodology two years ago, eliminating the academic survey on schools’ reputations which rewards big brand schools superior name recognition. It also didn’t reward schools for the amount of money it spends on instruction.

This year’s methodology is very similar to last year, with three metrics accounting for 70% of the overall score: Salary Impact, Years to Pay Off Net Price, and Graduation Rate Impact.

WSJ Methodology Metrics
Category	Metric	Weight	Description
Student Outcomes (70%)	Salary Impact	33%	Measures how much a college boosts graduates’ salaries beyond expected levels.
	Years to Pay Off Net Price	17%	Combines average net price with value added to graduates’ median salary to estimate how long it takes to pay off education costs.
	Graduation Rate Impact	20%	Assesses the college’s success in graduating students compared to expectations based on student demographics.
Learning Environment (20%)	Learning Opportunities	5%	Student satisfaction with faculty interactions, feedback, and teaching quality.
	Preparation for Career	5%	Evaluates career networking, advice, and applied learning opportunities.
	Learning Facilities	5%	Student satisfaction with libraries, internet, and classrooms.
	Recommendation Score	5%	Measures how likely students are to recommend their college to others.
Diversity (10%)	Ethnic Diversity	3.3%	Probability of random pairings being from different ethnic backgrounds.
	Inclusion of Students with Lower Family Earnings	3.3%	Proportion of Pell Grant recipients.
	Inclusion of Students with Disabilities	3.3%	Proportion of students with disabilities.
Contextual Figures	Average Net Price	–	The annual cost of attendance, factoring in grants and scholarships.
	Value Added to Graduate Salary	–	The difference in earnings attributable to attending the college compared to high school graduates.

See the full ranking methodology here.

THE 100 BEST U.S. COLLEGES BY WSJ

WSJ evaluated 584 U.S. private and public universities. For its full, overall ranking, it scored each school on student outcomes (70% weight), learning environment (20%) and diversity (10%).

It employed one of the largest independent student surveys and combined it with a “rigorous statistical analysis” of government data to calculate its school scores. It also factors cost of attendance (average net price) against student outcomes.

The top 100 schools from WSJ’s 2026 Best Colleges in the U.S. are shown in the table below. The full list is available here.

Wall Street Journal/College Pulse Top 100
WSJ 2026 Rank	Institution	Overall Score	Type
1	Stanford University	93	Private
2	Babson College	90.3	Private
3	Yale University	89.3	Private
4	Princeton University	89.2	Private
5	Harvard University	89	Private
6	Claremont McKenna College	88.2	Private
7	University of California, Berkeley	88.2	Public
8	Columbia University	87.6	Private
9	University of Pennsylvania	87.1	Private
10	Davidson College	86.2	Private
11	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	85.9	Private
12	Bentley University	85.7	Private
13	University of California, Davis	85.5	Public
14	University of California, Merced	85.4	Public
15	Harvey Mudd College	85.2	Private
16	Georgia Institute of Technology	85	Public
17	San José State University	84.6	Public
18	Cornell University	84.5	Private
19	Loyola University Maryland	84.3	Private
20	University of Notre Dame	84	Private
21	California State University, Stanislaus	83.5	Public
22	California State Polytechnic University, Pomona	83.3	Public
23	California Institute of Technology	83.1	Private
24	Swarthmore College	83	Private
25	University of Michigan, Ann Arbor	83	Public
26	Rice University	82.8	Private
27	Brown University	82.6	Private
28	California Polytechnic State Univ., San Luis Obispo	82.4	Public
29	Lehigh University	82.2	Private
30	University of Chicago	82.2	Private
31	University of Virginia, Main Campus	82.1	Public
32	California State University, Fresno	81.9	Public
33	Texas A & M University, College Station	81.8	Public
34	Vanderbilt University	81.8	Private
35	Virginia Tech	81.7	Public
36	University of Detroit Mercy	81.6	Private
37	University of Southern California	81.5	Private
38	University of Delaware	81.4	Public
39	Washington University in St. Louis	81.4	Private
40	Colgate University	81.4	Private
41	University of California, San Diego	81.3	Public
42	Colby College	81.3	Private
43	California State University, Long Beach	81.2	Public
44	Baruch College, CUNY	81.1	Public
45	California State University, San Bernardino	80.8	Public
46	Carnegie Mellon University	80.8	Private
47	Dartmouth College	80.6	Private
48	University of California, Irvine	80.4	Public
49	University of Texas at Austin	80.4	Public
50	Northwestern University	80.3	Private
51	Quinnipiac University	80.2	Private
52	California State University, Northridge	80.2	Public
53	Georgetown University	80.1	Private
54	Florida International University	80.1	Public
55	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	80.1	Public
56	Lafayette College	80	Private
57	University of California, Riverside	79.7	Public
58	College of the Holy Cross	79.6	Private
59	California State University, Chico	79.6	Public
60	Amherst College	79.5	Private
61	Washington and Lee University	79.5	Private
62	Azusa Pacific University	79.4	Private
63	Brigham Young University	79.3	Private
64	Towson University	79.2	Public
65	California State University, Fullerton	79.2	Public
66	California State University, Sacramento	79	Public
67	Montclair State University	79	Public
68	Duke University	78.8	Private
69	San Francisco State University	78.8	Public
70	California State University, Los Angeles	78.8	Public
71	George Mason University	78.5	Public
72	University of Florida	78.5	Public
73	Manhattan University	78.4	Private
74	Augustana College	78.4	Private
75	Molloy University	78.4	Private
76	University of Rhode Island	78.4	Public
77	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	78.3	Public
78	University of Utah	78.3	Public
79	California State University, San Marcos	78.2	Public
80	University of California, Los Angeles	77.9	Public
81	Fairfield University	77.9	Private
82	Marquette University	77.9	Private
83	Haverford College	77.7	Private
84	New Jersey Institute of Technology	77.6	Public
85	University of the Pacific	77.5	Private
86	University of Portland	77.5	Private
87	University of La Verne	77.4	Private
88	University of Connecticut	77.3	Public
89	University of Redlands	77.2	Private
90	Bucknell University	77.2	Private
91	Santa Clara University	77.1	Private
92	Johns Hopkins University	77	Private
93	Wake Forest University	76.9	Private
94	University of Wisconsin, Madison	76.9	Public
95	Villanova University	76.8	Private
96	Bryant University	76.8	Private
97	University of Washington, Seattle	76.6	Public
98	University of San Diego	76.3	Private
99	Worcester Polytechnic Institute	76.2	Private
100	Emory University	76.1	Private