The latest rankings include a number of Connecticut schools in various categories, including national universities, liberal arts colleges, regional colleges and regional universities.
Yale University ranked as the No. 5 best national university in the country again this year, beating other Ivy League schools like the University of Pennsylvania (No. 10), Cornell University (tied for No. 11), Brown University and Columbia University (tied for No. 13), and Dartmouth College (tied for No. 15).
Yale’s ranking was behind Princeton University (No. 1), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (No. 2), Harvard University (No. 3) and Stanford University (No. 4).
University of Connecticut was ranked No. 70
At No. 70, University of Connecticut tied with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York. Last year, UConn was ranked 58 on the list.
A handful of other Connecticut schools made the national universities list of 436 schools, including Fairfield University at No. 132, Quinnipiac University at No. 179, Sacred Heart University ranked at No. 231, and University of Hartford at No. 315.
The U.S. News & World Report also ranked the country’s liberal arts schools, in which Wesleyan University in Middletown was ranked No. 14 in National Liberal Arts Colleges, Connecticut College was ranked No. 55 and Trinity College tied at No. 36.
A few Connecticut schools also made the top 100 in the Regional Universities North category, including University of Saint Joseph (tied for No. 49), Eastern Connecticut State University (tied for No. 57), Central Connecticut State University and Southern Connecticut State University (which tied for No. 66) and University of New Haven (tied for No. 91).
The United States Coast Guard Academy was named the number one regional college in the north again this year, and Mitchell College was ranked No. 30 and Goodwin University was ranked No. 48.
The top universities and colleges were chosen based on a variety of factors and criteria like graduation rates, cost of attendance and return on investment, student-faculty ratio and peer assessment, according to the U.S. News & World Report. The factors were each given different weights and percentages when overall scores were calculated, and then sorted and ranked. The report uses data compiled from various sources, including the U.S. Department of Education and National Center for Education Statistics, and surveys conducted by U.S. News and World Report.
This year, the methodology included some slight changes, as first-generation graduation rates and first-generation graduation rate performance were removed from the ranking calculations due to limitations with College Scorecard data, according to the U.S. News and World Report.