For the first time in 15 years, the leader in the ranking of the best universities in the United States has changed — here are those on the list
Kyiv • UNN
MIT took first place in the U.S. News ranking, ending Princeton’s 15-year reign. The changes are attributed to a new methodology and an assessment of graduates’ earnings.
Princeton’s fifteen-year leadership among U.S. colleges has come to an end. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is now in first place. UNN reports this, citing MarketWatch.
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This year, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology took first place in the ranking of the best U.S. colleges compiled by U.S. News & World Report; for the first time since 2012, Princeton University does not hold the top spot.
The change, the publication writes, likely does not indicate any significant shifts in the education Princeton and MIT provide to students, but is the result of an adjustment to the methodology U.S. News uses to calculate the ranking.
This year, the publication introduced a metric evaluating graduates’ earnings by selected major. MIT showed the best results in this new category, said Eric Brooks, director of education data analysis at U.S. News.
In addition to moving to the top of the list, other universities with an engineering, natural sciences, and mathematics focus also rose in the rankings.
The California Institute of Technology rose six places to fifth on the list, Carnegie Mellon University rose six places to 14th, and Stevens Institute of Technology rose 21 places to 59th. These institutions performed well under the new methodology, Brooks said.
The change in the ranking, aimed at focusing on earnings, comes after years of growing concern among parents and students about the value colleges provide. About 38% of Americans say they have a great deal of confidence in higher education in the U.S., compared with 57% who said the same in 2015, according to Gallup data. The cost of college education has fueled these concerns for years, while the recent difficulties young college graduates face in finding entry-level jobs in the age of artificial intelligence have only intensified them.
This year, many public colleges in the U.S. fell in the rankings. In the top 25, the University of California, Berkeley, fell five places, the University of California, Los Angeles, fell three places to 20th, and the University of Michigan fell five places to 25th. The University of Maryland and the University of Washington fell even further in the rankings—seven places, to 49th.