WSJ/College Pulse 2026 Best Colleges in America published today

[Anonymous]

Stanford, Babson, Yale are top-3. Rest is paywalled.

[Anonymous]

Babson lol
You know paywall doesn’t matter then.

[Anonymous]

Babson being top ten essentially means this is a worthless ranking, or perhaps pay to play.

[Anonymous]

The three “B” business schools near-ish Boston (Babson, Bentley, and Bryant) consistently rank very high on ROI compared to other schools. I expect this is a combination of being business focused with larger starting salaries and being more designed toward certain professional outcomes.

Say what you will about whether that is the purpose of undergrad, but the numbers don’t lie. WSJ ranking take into account ROI as a key metric.

[Anonymous]

garbage rankings if Babson makes the top ten lol.

almost as cringe-worthy as the silly linkedin rankings.

[Anonymous]

Top-10 list, for another site:

1. Stanford University
2. Babson College
3. Yale University
4. Princeton University
5. Harvard University
6. Claremont McKenna College
7. University of California, Berkeley *
8. Columbia University
9. University of Pennsylvania
10. Davidson College

* public university



michaelcollege
Senior Member

1
1h
i think i have it updated now. Sorry!



tsbna44

michaelcollege
1h
It’s paywalled but thanks for posting the top 25.




jym626
Senior Member

michaelcollege
32m
ChatGPT also told @choatiemom that she was dead! So go figure. But apparently it also said that posters here wrote very nice tributes to her, following her untimely death.:winking_face_with_tongue:


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[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Babson lol
You know paywall doesn’t matter then.

I simply don’t understand why it’s so hard to believe that other schools might be better than what us news has been telling people. Wall Street journal and Forbes gave you the numbers. These are the facts.

[Anonymous]

The WSJ rankings actually fill a very important niche for families that have little to no hope of attending even a top 50 school.

As an example, they list schools that we all know aren't "the best", but they represent likely great values and options for a lot of kids. Just looking at the list, below is an interesting sampling:

13. UC Davis
14. UC Merced
17. San Jose State University
19. Loyola University MD (I actually don't know if that's a great value)
21. Cal State Stanislaus
22. Cal State Pomona
28. Cal State San Obispo
32. Cal State Fresno
36. University of Detroit Mercy
38. University of Delaware
44. Baruch

It's not really saying these are the "best" colleges, but rather these colleges have the best relative outcomes for students.

I think including schools like Babson and Bentley is a bit unfair because they are 100% business...it's unclear how those schools would rank if only compared to Wharton, Stern, Ross et al.

[Anonymous]

Isn't their criteria all about return on investment? That doesn't match my personal values but, then again, neither does the way US News and World Report calculates it. I actually appreciate that this is the only list that forces people to look at schools differently.

And to the PP above, Loyola MD has a really good career services gives incredible merit aid. My kid did not choose it but I wanted him to. It was cheaper than instate.

[Anonymous]

Did the WSJ really call Cal Poly "Cal State San Obispo"? That is … really weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did the WSJ really call Cal Poly "Cal State San Obispo"? That is … really weird.

No...but it's official name was too long so I summarized.

California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The WSJ rankings actually fill a very important niche for families that have little to no hope of attending even a top 50 school.

As an example, they list schools that we all know aren't "the best", but they represent likely great values and options for a lot of kids. Just looking at the list, below is an interesting sampling:

13. UC Davis
14. UC Merced
17. San Jose State University
19. Loyola University MD (I actually don't know if that's a great value)
21. Cal State Stanislaus
22. Cal State Pomona
28. Cal State San Obispo
32. Cal State Fresno
36. University of Detroit Mercy
38. University of Delaware
44. Baruch

It's not really saying these are the "best" colleges, but rather these colleges have the best relative outcomes for students.

I think including schools like Babson and Bentley is a bit unfair because they are 100% business...it's unclear how those schools would rank if only compared to Wharton, Stern, Ross et al.

End of the day, why do you go to college? To get a job. My problem with US News is it puts too much emphasis on graduation rate (like 25 percent). Most, if not all, high achieving students have no concern with graduating so this is not really something that should be weighted heavily. Also, it doesn’t consider academic rigor. For instance, Berkeley might be punished for being more rigorous than UCLA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The WSJ rankings actually fill a very important niche for families that have little to no hope of attending even a top 50 school.

As an example, they list schools that we all know aren't "the best", but they represent likely great values and options for a lot of kids. Just looking at the list, below is an interesting sampling:

13. UC Davis
14. UC Merced
17. San Jose State University
19. Loyola University MD (I actually don't know if that's a great value)
21. Cal State Stanislaus
22. Cal State Pomona
28. Cal State San Obispo
32. Cal State Fresno
36. University of Detroit Mercy
38. University of Delaware
44. Baruch

It's not really saying these are the "best" colleges, but rather these colleges have the best relative outcomes for students.

I think including schools like Babson and Bentley is a bit unfair because they are 100% business...it's unclear how those schools would rank if only compared to Wharton, Stern, Ross et al.

End of the day, why do you go to college? To get a job. My problem with US News is it puts too much emphasis on graduation rate (like 25 percent). Most, if not all, high achieving students have no concern with graduating so this is not really something that should be weighted heavily. Also, it doesn’t consider academic rigor. For instance, Berkeley might be punished for being more rigorous than UCLA.

How would you ever be able to rank based on academic rigor? I assume Berkeley has hundreds of known "gut" classes, as does UCLA. How would you determine that Berkeley's Econ 101 class is more rigorous than UCLA or anyone else, and then apply this across an entire university's course offerings and do this in any kind of systematic fashion?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The WSJ rankings actually fill a very important niche for families that have little to no hope of attending even a top 50 school.

As an example, they list schools that we all know aren't "the best", but they represent likely great values and options for a lot of kids. Just looking at the list, below is an interesting sampling:

13. UC Davis
14. UC Merced
17. San Jose State University
19. Loyola University MD (I actually don't know if that's a great value)
21. Cal State Stanislaus
22. Cal State Pomona
28. Cal State San Obispo
32. Cal State Fresno
36. University of Detroit Mercy
38. University of Delaware
44. Baruch

It's not really saying these are the "best" colleges, but rather these colleges have the best relative outcomes for students.

I think including schools like Babson and Bentley is a bit unfair because they are 100% business...it's unclear how those schools would rank if only compared to Wharton, Stern, Ross et al.

End of the day, why do you go to college? To get a job. My problem with US News is it puts too much emphasis on graduation rate (like 25 percent). Most, if not all, high achieving students have no concern with graduating so this is not really something that should be weighted heavily. Also, it doesn’t consider academic rigor. For instance, Berkeley might be punished for being more rigorous than UCLA.

How would you ever be able to rank based on academic rigor? I assume Berkeley has hundreds of known "gut" classes, as does UCLA. How would you determine that Berkeley's Econ 101 class is more rigorous than UCLA or anyone else, and then apply this across an entire university's course offerings and do this in any kind of systematic fashion?

Exactly! Hence why the graduation metric should be less emphasized to maybe 10 percent. It’s hard to measure, but you also can’t deny that the difference in rigor exists. There’s a saying here in California: it’s hard to get into Stanford, but easy to get out; it’s easy to get into Berkeley, but difficult to get out. But one way they can probably measure rigor is looking into grade deflation and inflation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The WSJ rankings actually fill a very important niche for families that have little to no hope of attending even a top 50 school.

As an example, they list schools that we all know aren't "the best", but they represent likely great values and options for a lot of kids. Just looking at the list, below is an interesting sampling:

13. UC Davis
14. UC Merced
17. San Jose State University
19. Loyola University MD (I actually don't know if that's a great value)
21. Cal State Stanislaus
22. Cal State Pomona
28. Cal State San Obispo
32. Cal State Fresno
36. University of Detroit Mercy
38. University of Delaware
44. Baruch

It's not really saying these are the "best" colleges, but rather these colleges have the best relative outcomes for students.

I think including schools like Babson and Bentley is a bit unfair because they are 100% business...it's unclear how those schools would rank if only compared to Wharton, Stern, Ross et al.

So move to California? The above list is otherwise meaningless.