Our rankings challenge conventional assessments and empower students and parents to make informed choices.
NEW YORK, NY – Is a college degree worth the investment? Will a college challenge students to pursue intellectual advancement—or activism? Will political dissenters be ostracized on campus? To answer these and other questions, prospective college students and their parents should look to the City Journal College Rankings. Our rankings provide a rigorous, data-driven evaluation of 100 prominent American colleges and universities. They present a holistic view of higher education and capture key dimensions of academic life that traditional measures have long ignored.
Unlike other calculations that chiefly emphasize reputation, the City Journal College Rankings measures 68 distinct factors across four broad categories: Leadership Quality, Educational Quality, Student Experience, and Outcomes. The methodology integrates existing data from government sources and other ranking systems with newly developed indicators to calculate the effects of a college education on students’ intellectual and professional development.
The rankings highlight a growing gap between reputation and reality in American higher education. While elite universities such as Harvard continue to dominate traditional lists, the City Journal College Rankings find that many of these institutions underperform when evaluated on free expression, curricular rigor, and ideological balance. In our assessment, schools like the University of Florida emerge as leaders with strong academic performance and commitment to open inquiry and civic education. Our goal is to help students and families make informed choices and to encourage colleges and universities to pursue reforms that strengthen their educational missions.
Click here for the complete rankings and detailed methodology.
Are you interested in supporting the Manhattan Institute’s public-interest research and journalism? As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, donations in support of MI and its scholars’ work are fully tax-deductible as provided by law (EIN #13-2912529).
