2011 AMERICA'S BEST COLLEGS - US NEW & WORLD REPORT
Harvard Once Again Tops the Best Colleges Rankings
Williams College is the top-ranked national liberal arts college.
By Brian Burnsed
Posted August 17, 2010
This year, Harvard University regained sole possession of the top spot in U.S.News & World Report's Best Colleges 2011 rankings of national universities. Last year, Harvard and Princeton University tied for first, but Princeton fell to second in the 2011 rankings of these large, research-oriented institutions. Williams College can once again boast that it's the nation's top-ranked national liberal arts college—a category of schools that place a higher emphasis on undergraduate education—as it ranked a spot ahead of fellow Massachusetts liberal arts school Amherst College for the second consecutive year.
This marks the 27th year that U.S. News has published college rankings. Though the top-ranked schools garner much acclaim, the rankings aren't produced simply to benefit students who are considering attending institutions like Harvard and Williams. U.S. News uses its array of college data to provide insight to students of various academic and socioeconomic backgrounds. There is a list of the best schools for B students, rankings of historically black colleges and universities, as well as rankings of the most diverse national universities. And though the worst of the financial crisis seems to have passed, finding value in the increasingly expensive world of higher education is still one of the most important—if not the most important—factors in choosing a school. To meet that need, U.S. News has compiled best value lists for national universities and national liberal arts colleges, which rank schools based on the average cost of attending—after need-based grants are taken into account—relative to their academic ranking.
The National Universities and National Liberal Arts Colleges lists are just two of several sets of rankings that are a part of U.S. News's evaluation of Best Colleges. Regional colleges and universities, which tend to draw heavily from their local area, and tend to have sparse doctoral program offerings, are ranked separately. Villanova University, Rollins College, Creighton University, and Trinity University are the top-ranked Regional Universities—schools that offer degrees up to the master's level and were ranked as "Master's Universities" in the past—in the North, South, Midwest and West, respectively. The top-ranked Regional Colleges—schools that offer bachelor's degrees and were classified as "Baccalaureate Colleges" in previous rankings—are the United States Coast Guard Academy in the North, Ouachita Baptist University in the South, Taylor University in the Midwest, and the United States Air Force Academy in the West.
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