Introducing the City Journal College Rankings

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Introducing the City Journal College Rankings

 

Higher education is in crisis.  Once considered a pinnacle of American achievement, our universities today face a historic deficit of public confidence, driven by the perception (and reality) that academia has prized political activism over truth-seeking.

With pressure mounting from students, parents, alumni, and policymakers, now is a time of great uncertainty for the American university—yet also an opportunity for experimentation, innovation, and reform.  Some elite universities seem bent on discrediting themselves; others stand out for their efforts to enact meaningful change.  In a telling trend, a growing number of students now flock to Southern universities, many of which, unlike their Ivy League counterparts, have preserved or expanded their commitments to open inquiry, intellectual pluralism, and critical thinking.

 

Yet too many Americans remain guided by the old markers of prestige.  The brightest students often assume by default that the best education will come from a Harvard, Yale, or Stanford.  These same institutions continue to exert disproportionate cultural and professional influence.  These legacy elite schools remain well-positioned primarily because everyone sees them as the best, not because they are actually providing the best undergraduate education.

In other words, we find, at present, a mismatch between reputation and reality.  This is due, in part, to the fact that prospective students and parents lack access to the information they need to determine which school is best for them.  As Americans rethink higher education, they need new tools to help them make better decisions.  [...]

 

https://www.city-journal.org/article/2025-college-rankings?skip=1

 

 

City Journal 2025 College Rankings

 

What's the best college for you?

Unfortunately, existing college rankings don't provide a full picture of the schools you're considering.

College shapes a student's mind and character—for better or for worse.  It forms the person you become.  It educates—or miseducates.  Yet rankings typically focus on factors that say little about how a school will influence your future.  They tell you almost nothing about the content of the education, the campus environment, or the institution's core values.  With higher education in crisis, you need the most relevant information in order to choose the right college.

Welcome to the City Journal College Rankings, a holistic assessment of 100 prominent colleges in the United States, analyzing far more factors than the established evaluation tools consider.  [...]

 

https://collegerankings.city-journal.org/

Edited 12 hours ago by TBoneTX