NEW: Brown In Top 5% of Nation’s Colleges, Says Forbes Magazine

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Thursday, August 04, 2011

GoLocalProv Features Team

Brown University is in the top 5% of the nation's best colleges, ranking #21 in Forbes Magazine's annual America's Top College listing.

The annual ranking of the 650 best undergraduate institutions is based on "things that matter most to students," according to Forbes: "Quality of teaching, great career prospects, graduation rates and low levels of debt."

Brown is the highest-ranked RI-based college or university on the Forbes list. It ranked #18 overall in Forbes' listing of private colleges, #10 among research universities, and #12 in the highly competitive Northeast.

RI colleges on the list

Providence College was ranked #156 on the Forbes listing, with a ranking of #137 among private colleges and #64 in the Northeast. URI placed at #375, Roger Williams at #477, Johnson & Wales at #542, and Rhode Island College at #571.

The big winners

Williams College, the small private college in northwestern MA, was ranked #1, and Princeton University followed at #2. West Point placed at #3, followed by Amherst College (#4) and Stanford University (#5). Other Ivy League schools ranking above Brown were Harvard (#6) and Yale (#14).

How Forbes does the numbers

The rankings are based on five general categories: Post Graduate success (30%), which evaluates alumni pay and prominence, Student Satisfaction (27.5%), which includes professor evaluations and freshman to sophomore year retention rates, Debt (17.5%), which penalizes schools for high student debt loads and default rates, Four Year Graduation Rate (17.5%) and Competitive Awards (7.5%), which rewards schools whose students win prestigious scholarships and fellowships like the Rhodes, the Marshall and the Fulbright.

For the complete rankings, go here.