By MARY PATRICK
Princeton University is the best university in the country, according to the Best Colleges 2014 list released this week by U.S. News and World Report.
The New Jersey school returned to the No. 1 spot after sharing it last year with Harvard University, which fell to No. 2.
As part of the rankings, U.S. News reports that earning a bachelor’s degree remains a smart choice for Americans. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) statistics show that earning a bachelor’s degree can lead to making $414 more per week, on average, than those who get only a high school diploma, according to U.S. News.
U.S. News ranks schools in various categories. The most well-known is the Best Colleges 2014 National University rankings. You can check out the full rankings here.
After Princeton and Harvard, the top schools, in order, are: Yale University in New Haven, Conn.; Columbia University in New York City; Stanford University in Stanford, Calif.; University of Chicago (tied with Stanford); Duke University in Durham, N.C.; Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass. (tied with Duke); the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Penn. (tied with Duke and MIT); and the California Institute of Technology.
The other categories, and the top schools in each, are:
Best National Liberal Arts Colleges: Williams College in Williamstown, Mass.
Bet Regional University – North: Villanova University in Philadelphia, Penn.
Best Regional University – South: A tie between Elon University in Elon, N.C., and Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla.
Best Regional University – Midwest: Creighton University in Omaha, Neb.
Best Regional University – West: Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas
Best Regional Colleges – North: Cooper Union in New York City
Best Regional Colleges – South: High Point University in High Point, N.C.
Best Regional Colleges – Midwest: Taylor University in Upland, Ind.
Best Regional Colleges – West: Carroll College in Helena, Mont.
U.S. News considers a variety of different data when putting together the rankings. They include the tuition cost, acceptance rates, class sizes, graduation rates and average debt of graduate. This year, the rankings methodology was changed to reduce the importance of the high school rank of students and to put more weight on student graduation and retention rates in the national universities and liberal arts categories.
The top public school in the national university rankings was the University of California-Berkeley. The University of California’s Los Angeles, Davis and San Diego campuses all made the Top 10 among public universities.
The University of Maryland-Baltimore was ranked the top “up-and-coming” university, while Harvard was named the “best value” school.
The schools with the most international students, according to U.S. News, are New School in New York City, the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Fla., the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago and Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla.
