Northwestern University ranks 6th on Best Colleges list – NBC Chicago

Several colleges and universities from Illinois and the Midwest have made it to U.S. News & World Report's latest Best Colleges rankings for 2025, with many moving up spots on the prestigious list.

The 40th edition of the annual report, released Tuesday, evaluated nearly 1,500 colleges and universities based on 17 evaluation criteria and weightings, the editors said, including graduation rates, borrower debt, financial resources, peer evaluations and faculty salaries.

According to the editors, this year's ranking formula was almost identical to that of 2024, which saw significant methodological changes. A more detailed overview of the university rankings can be found here.

While the top five universities on the list are located on both coasts, Northwestern University in suburban Evanston came in at number 6, tied with Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Duke University in Durham and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

In last year’s ranking, Northwestern University came in 9th place.

Tied with Cornell University, the University of Chicago came in at No. 11, moving up from No. 12 on last year's list. Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, shared 18th place with Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and Rice University in Houston, Texas.

Two other universities from the Midwest made it into the top 25: The University of Michigan Ann Arbor and Washington University in St. Louis shared three other spots for 21st place.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, which ranked 35th last year, moved up two spots for the 2025 list. The University of Wisconsin-Madison dropped four spots and ranks 39th this year.

In addition to ranking the best U.S. universities, the report also evaluated the National Liberal Arts Colleges. Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, came in 8th place.

The editors also released a list of colleges that achieved “top scores in social mobility” among both liberal arts schools and public universities, which measured how well the schools graduated economically disadvantaged students. Lake Forest College, a liberal arts school in the suburb of Lake Forest, tied for first place on the list with Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia.

Here is the list of the top 25 schools that made it to the report’s Best Colleges list 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 – Draw on both sides: 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 at St. Louis – St. Louis, Missouri

No. 24: Emory University-Atlanta, Georgia; Georgetown University-Washington, DC; University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia

Due to the tie, no university was listed at number 25. The next university on the list was the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill at number 27.

The full report and list of schools can be found here.