by our College Data Analytics Team
We have analyzed almost 5,000 colleges & universities in the United States to come up with this year’s ranking. This new edition of our Best Colleges Ranking expands the signals used and the scope of the rankings to include all degree levels and majors.
There is no such thing as the “Best College”. The real question to answer is, what is the best college for YOU?
We believe in the individuality and uniqueness of every student. Thus, we over not just one ranking, but many different rankings that can be filtered or modified for every student.
Schools were assessed across 1,784 different majors & concentrations, 60+ different places (state, region & nationwide) and 4 degree levels to come up with what amounts to over 800k distinct lists to help students find the best-fit college for them.
This year represents a significant step forward in college rankings. We have re-architected our rankings from the ground up to take advantage of some new datasets that have become available over the years to optimize how we help students find the best fit college for them.
Changes in this year’s edition of the rankings:
All Degree Levels: Using new data from sources like the Department of Education College Scorecard by Field of Study we now have enough data to assess every major at the associate, bachelors, masters and doctorate level.
Expansion of Majors Covered: We have incorporated the 2020 Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) Taxonomy to ranks over 300 new and interesting majors that have been added since the last update a decade ago. Examples include highly relevant fields such as Data Science, Health Policy Analysis and Sustainability Science. We are also now ranking programs at the 3rd level of the taxonomy which includes over 1,000 program concentrations to find the school that specializes in the exact subject you are passionate about.
Truly Ground Up Overall Rankings: We now use a combination of major + degree-level specific factors to assess each program at a school and then aggregate that up, weighted by student completions, in order to get an assessment of the school as a whole.
More Schools Included: An expansion in the signals we use to assess a school’s quality has allowed us to analyze a much larger number of schools for inclusion in the ranking, turning up some real winners that would have been off the radar in the past due to insufficient data.
Please see our Best Colleges Ranking Methodology page for the full details beyond the 20+ factors that are used to determine this ranking.
College Factual’s mission is to help all students find their best-fit college, career, and major and the most affordable path to get there. Located in Troy, New York, the data analytics company offers free resources and advanced college matching technology to students from all over the world.
Media Contact: Josh McWilliam, media@collegefactualcom, +1 (518) 229-6759