The country's best colleges

By U.S. News & World Report

This year, Harvard University regained sole possession of the top spot in U.S. News & World Report's Best Colleges 2011 rankings of national universities. Last year, Harvard and Princeton University tied for first, but Princeton fell to second in the new rankings of these large research-oriented institutions.

Harvard was the only school among the top 50 in which 80% or more of classes had fewer than 20 students, indicative of the school's emphasis on creating small and focused learning environments.

This marks the 27th year that U.S. News has published college rankings, and, though the worst of the financial crisis seems to have passed, finding value in the increasingly expensive world of higher education is still one of the most important factors in choosing a school. To meet that need, U.S. News has compiled "best value" lists for national universities and national liberal-arts colleges. These lists rank schools based on the average cost of attending -- after need-based grants are taken into account -- relative to their academic ranking.

Yale University, ranked the third-best college in the nation, was judged to provide the most value among national universities -- and the average cost of attending for students receiving need-based aid in 2009 was $13,631, a 73% discount from the total yearly cost of attendance.

Our rankings are intended to inform students, not tell them where to go to college. In an age where the price of a four-year education at many of the nations' top schools exceeds $200,000, however, some young people are questioning whether to go to college.

Williams College can once again boast that it's the nation's top-ranked national-liberal-arts college -- a category of schools that place a higher emphasis on undergraduate education -- as it ranked a spot ahead of fellow Massachusetts liberal-arts school Amherst College for the second consecutive year. For 2009, the four-year graduation rate at Williams was 96%, the highest among national liberal-arts colleges.

Unfortunately, it's not clear whether the product they're paying for -- an education -- is getting any better or any easier to evaluate. Numerous studies show that tuition, which has far outpaced the cost of living, has been spent on things other than classroom teaching. Administrative staffs and lavish facilities top the list.

If colleges were businesses, they would be ripe for hostile takeovers, complete with serious cost-cutting and painful reorganizations. You can be sure those business analysts would ask: Is the consumer getting the product we promised? What do you actually learn here? Can you guarantee a job or admission to graduate school?

Continued: A college education does hold value

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