Moses Malone didn’t go, Mark Zuckerberg dropped out and James Buchanan (the fifteenth president of the United States, duh) was expelled. Still, going to college, Forbes tells us, is a good idea if you want to go far in life.
On Wednesday, the “home page for the world’s business leaders” released its annual list of America’s Best Colleges. The list of 610 — comprising 9 percent of America’s public and private institutions of higher education — was calculated using criteria such as overall student satisfaction, graduation rates, success post-graduation, and average student debt load.
The top school?
Williams College, an ancient (by American standards — it was founded in 1793) liberal arts school, located in sleepy Williamstown, Mass.
The 2,000 undergrad institution, which costs more than $37,000 per year in tuition, is among the best colleges in the Northeast by most measures. The Princeton Review ranks Williams sixth in total value among American private colleges and fifth in accessible professors. At a 7:1 student to faculty ratio, teachers are everywhere, including the local bars — of which there are very few.
Last year, the United States Military Academy (West Point) sat atop the list.
The rest of this year’s top 10:
2 – Princeton University
3 – Amherst College
4 – United States Military Academy
5 – Massachusetts Institute of Technology
6 – Stanford University
7 – Swarthmore College
8 – Harvard University
9 – Claremont McKenna College
10 – Yale University
Check here for the full list.
Photo by Daderot via Wikimedia Commons.