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TIME Magazine unveiled brand-new college rankings last week. Called “America’s Best College of 2026-2027,” it made waves the way that these rankings typically do. The colleges on the list celebrated, people commented on the methodology, and TIME got to have its story about what this means for students.
I had planned to do a deep dive on the new rankings with some commentary, but I can’t really muster it. TIME’s methodology, developed in partnership with data company Statista, was developed “with a focus on three pillars: student outcomes, learning environment, and attractiveness.” You will notice Standardized Test Scores, Admissions Selectivity, Graduation Rate, Retention Rate, or Peer Assessment–all key parts of the U.S. News and World Report Best Colleges Rankings–are not one of the three pillars TIME used. This is clearly meant to be a different ranking than others. Despite that, the number one slot belongs to Stanford University, a school that is very familiar with topping ranking lists.
These new rankings do have some issues. For one thing, “three pillars” would indicate all three were even. TIME and Statista made “student outcomes” 75% of their rankings. That is basically graduation rates and student earnings, with some consideration of average student debt. This has made STEM-focused schools rise to the top, something TIME brags about. MIT is 2nd, Harvey Mudd is 4th, and CalTech is 6th. There are some surprise entrants, like Babson College at 12 and Lehigh University at 21. Those schools are ahead of some Ivy League schools by this reckoning.
The list of schools isn’t really the issue with this or any school rankings. The problem is they are inherently ranked on extremely fine margins. The list will change when they run it again next year. TIME’s rankings spit out a score on a 100 point scale. Stanford gets a 96.36, while tenth place Harvard University is 91.11. In addition to being a newly invented statistic, that separation isn’t much. A small tweak or one or two different outcomes can make Harvard leap over Stanford.
I’m also not sure how much the world needs another college ranking. Most people, when they hear “College Rankings,” will still think of football or basketball polls. TIME did get some discussion for their new rankings, and there’s another badge of honor for some colleges. Stanford doesn’t exactly need help in making students want to attend, and being ranked number one here doesn’t change that. While Babson and Lehigh don’t have the name recognition among the prestige-hungry as Stanford, MIT, or Harvard, number 12 and 21 on a new ranking list aren’t likely to move the needle much.
As someone who just published a new College Guide, maybe I shouldn’t be criticizing another list of colleges. I also never seriously considered building any kind of Rankings. What our Abstracts do is provide basic information about each college, and presenting over 500 in the guide means that we are placing all the schools on an even footing. It would be in some way antithetical to build a ranking list.
Ranking lists are also a pain to make. I didn’t really have the energy to sort what was most important and if it would matter. Kudos to TIME and Statistica for doing it, I guess. But I’m not sure how much it’s worth going back to these rankings now that they’ve announced it. Let’s see what it looks like next year.
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