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Pomona College Ranks No. 1 on Forbes' Eighth Annual Ranking of America's Top Colleges

  • 07/29/15

NEW YORK, NY – Pomona College tops Forbes’ 2015 8th annual rankings of America’s Top Colleges (p. 75 of the August 17, 2015 issue of Forbes magazine). The rankings are featured online at www.forbes.com/top-colleges. The debate about whether U.S. higher education is worth the price is over when it comes to these outstanding 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.

Pomona College moved Williams College out of first place and into the No. 2 spot on this year’s rankings. Stanford University moved down to No. 3 from 2nd place last year, followed by Princeton University (No. 4) and Yale University at No. 5. The three highest ranking public schools are University of California, Berkeley (No. 35), University of Virginia (No. 36), and the College of William & Mary (No. 39). Wellesley College (No. 26) was ranked the best all-women’s college.

Notable trends in the Top 10 schools:

  • 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 percent leaving/transferring to another school.
  • They have high four-year graduation rates. 84 percent or more graduate in four years.
  • They are all old schools. Pomona College is the newest, founded in 1887.

Background:

  • 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.

Forbes.com’s coverage includes a complete ranking of 650 colleges, Best Value Colleges, Best Public Colleges, Best Private Colleges and related online features and videos. The Top 10 colleges are:

RANK

 NAME/STATE

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

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  • Photo courtesy of Kraus-Anderson

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