Princeton University held onto its spot at the top of the annual “U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges” list for 2025. The Ivy League school once again ranked as the best national university in the latest rankings released Tuesday.
MIT came in second, followed by Harvard and Stanford. Yale University in New Haven, Conn. came in fifth.
Other tri-state area schools in the top 50 include Cornell (#11), Columbia (#13), NYU (#30), Rutgers (#41), and the University of Rochester (#44).
The list is based on a methodology of 17 different academic factors, with this year’s list including an importance on social mobility and post-graduation success, according to U.S. News.
“More than 50% of an institution’s ranking includes varying outcome measures related to its success in enrolling and graduating students from all backgrounds with manageable debt as well as earnings of post graduates,” U.S. News said on its site.
Other tri-state schools in the top 100 of national universities are: Stony Brook (#58), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (#70), UConn (#70), Binghamton University (#73), Syracuse University (#73), Stevens Institute of Technology (#76), University of Buffalo (#76), Rutgers — Newark (#80), New Jersey Institute of Technology (#84), Fordham (#91), Rochester Institute of Technology (#91), and Yeshiva University (#98).
See the full list of tri-state rankings and the top 25 overall national universities below.
New York, New Jersey and Connecticut schools in U.S. News’ Best Colleges rankings
- No. 1: Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey
- No. 5: Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut
- No. 11: Cornell University in Ithaca, New York
- No. 13: Columbia University in New York, New York
- No. 30: New York University in New York, New York
- No. 41: Rutgers University — New Brunswick in Piscataway, New Jersey
- No. 44: University of Rochester in Rochester, New York
- No. 58: Stony Brook University — SUNY in Stony Brook, New York
- No. 70: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York
- No. 70: University of Connecticut in Storrs, Connecticut
- No. 73: Binghamton University — SUNY in Binghamton, New York
- No. 73: Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York
- No. 76: Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey
- No. 76: University at Buffalo — SUNY in Buffalo, New York
- No. 80: Rutgers University — Newark in Newark, New Jersey
- No. 84: New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, New Jersey
- No. 91: Fordham University in New York, New York
- No. 91: Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York
- No. 98: Yeshiva University in New York, New York
- No. 121: CUNY — City College in New York, New York
- No. 121: University at Albany — SUNY in Albany, New York
- No. 132: Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut
- No. 144: SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York
- No. 152: Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York
- No. 152: Montclair State University in Montclair, New Jersey
- No. 152: St. John’s University in Queens, New York
- No. 152: Stockton University in Galloway, New Jersey
- No. 165: Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey
- No. 171: Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey
- No. 171: Touro University in New York, New York
- No. 179: Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut
- No. 179: St. John Fisher University in Rochester, New York
- No. 189: Adelphi University in Garden City, New York
- No. 196: Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York
- No. 204: The New School in New York, New York
- No. 209: Russell Sage College in Troy, New York
- No. 231: Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut
- No. 259: D’Youville University in Buffalo, New York
- No. 266: Pace University in New York, New York
- No. 315: Kean University in Union, New Jersey
Some schools had the same rankings due to ties.
Here’s the list of the top 25 schools that ranked on the report’s list of “Best Colleges” for 2025:
No. 1: Princeton University – Princeton, New Jersey
No. 2: Massachusetts Institute of Technology – Cambridge, Massachusetts
No. 3: Harvard University – Cambridge, Massachusetts
No. 4: Stanford University – Stanford, California
No. 5: Yale University – New Haven, Connecticut
No. 6 – four-way tie: California Institute of Technology – Pasadena, California; Duke University – Durham, North Carolina; Johns Hopkins University – Baltimore, Maryland; Northwestern University – Evanston, Illinois
No. 10: University of Pennsylvania – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
No. 11 – two-way tie: Cornell University – Ithaca, New York; University of Chicago – Chicago, Illinois
No. 13 – two-way tie: Brown University – Providence, Rhode Island; Columbia University – New York, New York
No. 15 — two-way tie: Dartmouth College – Hanover, New Hampshire; University of California, Los Angeles – Los Angeles, California
No. 17: University of California, Berkeley – Berkeley, California
No. 18 – three-way tie: Rice University – Houston, Texas; University of Notre Dame – South Bend, Indiana; Vanderbilt University – Nashville, Tennessee
No. 21: Carnegie Mellon University – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor – Ann Arbor, Michigan; Washington University in St. Louis — St. Louis, Missouri
No. 24: Emory University — Atlanta, Georgia; Georgetown University – Washington, D.C.; University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia
Due to the tie, there was no university listed in the 25th spot. The next university that made the list was University of North Carolina Chapel Hill at No. 27.
