Forbes’ Best Colleges 2010

Here are the Top 10 colleges according to Forbes:



RANK NAME/STATE IN-STATE
TUITION
TYPICAL GRAD DEBT


1 Williams College, MA $37,640 $ 9,296
2 Princeton University, NJ $34,290 $14,294
3 Amherst College, MA $37,640 $12,587
4 United States Military Academy, NY 0 0
5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MA $37,960 $17,923
6 Stanford University, CA $36,360 $19,897
7 Swarthmore College, PA $36,490 $ 9,812
8 Harvard University, MA $36,173 $16,153
9 Claremont McKenna College, CA $37,060 $14,026
10 Yale University, CT $35,300 $20,382


Here’s and excerpt from their comments on methodology:

The best college in America isn’t in Cambridge or Princeton, West Point
or Annapolis. It’s nestled in the Berkshire Mountains. Williams College,
a 217-year-old private liberal arts school, tops our third annual ranking
of America’s Best Colleges. Our list of more than 600 undergraduate
institutions is based on the quality of the education they
provide, the experiences of the students and how much they achieve.


Williams rose to the top spot on our rankings, which are compiled with
research from the Center for College Affordability & Productivity, after
placing fourth last year and fifth in 2008. It’s a small school (just
over 2,000 undergrads) with a 7-to-1 student-to-faculty ratio, affording
students the chance to really get to know their teachers and have a unique
college experience.


“One of the things that we really embrace is that we are tiny and very
aware of where we are in the world. This fosters an incredible sense of
community,” says Amanda Esteves-Kraus, a double-major in art history and
biology in the class of 2012. “It takes a very specific type of student
to go to Williams, and there is a quirkiness here that you can’t find
anywhere else. This all makes the fact that we are in the middle of
nowhere totally irrelevant because you don’t actually want to be anywhere
else.”


To our way of thinking, a good college is one that meets student needs.
While other college rankings are based in large part on school reputation
as evaluated by college administrators, we focus on factors that directly
concern incoming students: Will my courses be interesting? Is it likely I
will graduate in four years? Will I incur a ton of debt getting my degree?
And once I get out of school, will I get a good job?


To answer these questions, the staff at CCAP gathers data from a variety
of sources. They use 11 factors in compiling these rankings, each of which
falls into one of five general categories. First, they measure how much
graduates succeed in their chosen professions after they leave school,
evaluating the average salaries of graduates reported by Payscale.com
(30%), the number of alumni listed in a Forbes/CCAP list of corporate
officers (5%), and enrollment-adjusted entries in Who’s Who in America
(10%)