So says Forbes magazine. Their Top 10 list is interesting, especially #9 http://finance.yahoo.com/news/harvard-only-7th-best-school-170720666.html
Money Magazine has its own college rankings list now, too. It ranks Babson College #1. The factors that make a "best college" are highly subjective, and I'm glad there are some competing college rankings that consider factors like student debt, affordability, outcomes, etc. instead of basing it mostly on prestige. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/29/upshot/building-a-better-college-ranking-system-babson-beats-harvard.html?_r=0
The service academies get a boost in the Forbes ranking, because it includes student debt as a factor (the US News rankings do not). There is no reason to graduate with debt from a service academy, because they charge nothing for tuition, fees, or room & board. The only charges are for textbooks and uniforms, and students get some taxable pay to cover that.
Actually, Forbes says that Harvard rose. Harvard was #8 in the Forbes rankings last year, but rose to #7 this year.
Interesting that there are 9 other schools on the list, yet the story lead only mentions Harvard. Other schools may best H here and there but the brand endures.
The only ranking that would make sense to me is one where you tell it which criteria are important to you and how important each criterion is, and it generates one for you based on that.
When researching schools I looked up all these list and it was very difficult weeding them out. Some of the schools I hadn't heard of.
Babson? Please! This business college has always been for rich prep school grads who want to work in Daddy's business when they graduate. Similar to Bentley. A "B" school in every way.
US dominates Chinese world university rankings No real surprises here with a different ranking system yielding different results - the US capturing most of the top 20 spots. US dominates Chinese world university rankings