2022-2023 Best Colleges Rankings

Sapneil Parikh
Sep 26, 2022
2 min read

U.S. News & World Report recently released its 2022 College Rankings. The Best Colleges

rankings includes approximately 1,500 colleges and universities across the U.S. But what do

these rankings mean and how are they determined?

To create the 2022 lists, U.S. News gathered data from each college in the spring and summer of this year. The below measures, and their respective weights, were used to score the colleges in the ranking formula:

Graduation and retention rates (22%): Colleges scored top points for having the most

students who returned to campus for sophomore year and go on to graduate within six years.

Social Mobility (5%): Those colleges that scored high in the category graduated students who

received Pell grants (households earning less than $50,000 annually).

Graduation Rate Performance (8%): This is a comparison of a college’s 6-year graduation

with what was predicted for the fall 2014 and 2015 incoming classes.

Undergraduate Academic Reputation (20%): This was based on a peer assessment survey.

Top academics including presidents, provosts, and deans of admission rated the academic

quality of peer institutions with which they are familiar on a scale of 1 to 5.

Faculty resources (20%): Data used in this category is based on the 2021-22 academic year.

Class size is the highest weighted measure within this category at 8%.

Student Selectivity (7%): This score includes standardized tests and high school class standing.

Financial resources (10%): This counts per-student spending, meaning the average spending

per student on instruction, research, student services, and related educational expenditures.

Alumni giving rate (3%): This reflects the average percentage of living alumni with bachelor’s

degrees who gave to their school between 2019 and 2021.

Graduate Indebtedness (5%): Students are beginning to weigh the benefits of earning a

college degree compared to the affordability of attending the college itself.

5 Comments

Vishvajeet

Dec 23, 2025

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Dec 20, 2025

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Dec 17, 2025

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