U.S. News & World Report Posts 2026 College Rankings

Editorial team Sep 30, 2025 · 2 min read
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usnwr bestcollegesU.S. News & World Report released their 2026 college rankings recently.  Nearly 1,500 schools were ranked based on 17 factors, with the methodology mostly unchanged from the previous year.  

Princeton retains sole possession of the top spot for National Universities, and Williams College tops the list of Liberal Arts Colleges.  

Click on Continue Reading to see the rankings changes. 

 

 

U.S. News and World Report Ranking Changes (2026 vs 1)

College Kickstart LLC

InstitutionRank (2026)Rank (2025)Change
Princeton 1 1  
MIT 2 2  
Harvard 3 3  
Stanford 4 4  
Yale 4 5 1
UChicago 6 11 5
Duke 7 6 1
Johns Hopkins 7 6 1
Northwestern 7 6 1
UPenn 7 10 3
Caltech 11 6 5
Cornell 12 11 1
Brown 13 13  
Dartmouth 13 15 2
Columbia 15 13 2
UC Berkeley 15 17 2
Rice 17 18 1
UCLA 17 15 2
Vanderbilt 17 18 1
Carnegie Mellon 20 21 1
Michigan 20 21 1
Notre Dame 20 18 2
WUSTL 20 21 1
Emory (Emory) 24 24  
Georgetown 24 24  
UNC - Chapel Hill 26 27 1
Virginia 26 24 2
USC 28 27 1
UCSD 29 29  
Florida 30 30  
UT Austin 30 30  
Georgia Tech 32 33 1
NYU 32 30 2
UC Davis 32 33 1
UC Irvine 32 33 1
Boston College 36 37 1
Tufts 36 37 1
UIUC 36 33 3
Wisconsin 36 39 3
UCSB 40 39 1
Ohio State 41 41  
Boston University 42 41 1
Rutgers 42 41 1
Maryland 42 44 2
Washington 42 46 4
Lehigh 46 46  
Northeastern 46 54 8
Purdue 46 46  
Georgia 46 46  
U Rochester 46 44 2