Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

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

Featured

  • S4L Announces 2026 Education Design Showcase Winners

    Spaces4Learning is thrilled to announce the winners of the 2026 Education Design Showcase! Now in its 27th year, the annual awards program honors innovative solutions in planning, design, architecture, and construction across K–12 and higher education.

  • Homewood-Flossmoor High School NetZero Addition

    Homewood-Flossmoor High School NetZero Addition

    Established in 1999, the Education Design Showcase is a vehicle for showing off innovative — yet practical — solutions in planning, design, architecture, and construction. The Homewood-Flossmoor High School NetZero Addition has been recognized with an EDS 2026 Project of Distinction award in the category of New Construction.

  • Nashville Elementary School Receives LEED Gold Certification

    Goodlettsville Elementary School, part of Metro Nashville Public Schools in Nashville, Tenn., recently achieved LEED Gold Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), according to a news release. The 81,750-square-foot school opened in 2023 and was designed by Goodwyn Mills Cawood (GMC).

  • Myrtle Grove Elementary

    Phased Construction Keeps Students on Campus During Rebuild

    When Escambia County School District needed to replace most of Myrtle Grove Elementary School in Pensacola, Fla., it had three distinct challenges: honor the school's legacy in the community, bring state-of-the-art learning environments to the county, and be seamlessly built on the same site as the active school campus.