Princeton University makes another debut in the US university rankings.
Princeton University topped the Wall Street Journal/College Pulse rankings of America’s Best Colleges for 2025, released today (September 5). This is the second consecutive year that Princeton has been named the WSJ’s top school, continuing the impressive streak of the private Ivy League school from New Jersey.
Last week, Princeton University also topped Forbes’ list of America’s Top Colleges for the second year in a row, and it also topped U.S. News & World Report’s 2024 national university rankings, released last fall. If Princeton tops the U.S. News 2025 rankings, due to be released in the coming weeks, it will mark its consecutive victories in all three major rankings of U.S. universities.
WSJ Top 10
Princeton University topped the WSJ list with an overall score of 92.3. Its graduation rate was a near-perfect 99 (out of 100) and salary impact score was 97. The university’s diversity score of 76 reflects its balanced student body, and its learning opportunity and career readiness scores (73 and 77, respectively) highlight the school’s commitment to academic rigor and real-world preparation. Princeton graduates can expect to earn more than $81,000 in salary increase as added value.
The table below shows the top 10 schools in the WSJ’s 2025 rankings.
Wall Street Journal/College Pulse Top 10
Rank
school
state
type
Score
1 Princeton University New Jersey Private 92.3 2 Babson College Massachusetts Private 91.9 3 Stanford University California Private 91.6 4 Yale University Connecticut Private 89.3 5 Claremont McKenna College California Private 89.2 6 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Massachusetts Private 87.4 7 Harvard University Massachusetts Private 86.2 8 University of California, Berkeley California Public 86.1 9 Georgia Institute of Technology Georgia Public 85.8 10 Davidson College North Carolina Private 85.6
Babson College rises 124 places in two years
Perhaps the biggest story on the Journal’s latest list is the rapid growth of Babson College.
Babson College, a small private institution near Boston, rose 116 spots to enter the top 10 after ranking 126th last year for 2023. The big jump is the result of the Journal placing increased emphasis on the added value that comes to student success as a result of college choice.
Babson College rose another eight spots on the 2025 list, jumping ahead of Stanford University, Yale University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology to take the No. 2 spot. Babson College received a perfect score of 100 for its significant impact on graduates’ careers in terms of salary, ranking it No. 8 overall in that category.
In fact, the Class of 2023 set a new starting salary record for Babson undergraduates, earning an average annual salary of $75,579 — 20 percent higher than the average projected by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) for business majors, according to a Babson College news release. This record-breaking salary surpassed the previous record set by Babson College’s Class of 2022, who earned an average of 14 percent more in starting salaries than previous graduating classes.
Babson College also recorded a 98.6% employment rate for undergraduates.
“No. 2 Babson College emphasizes hands-on experience from the moment freshmen step on campus. Experiential learning opportunities are built into the Babson curriculum, including required business and entrepreneurship foundation classes, and students launch group startups during their first two semesters with loans of up to $3,000 from the school,” the WSJ wrote in its rankings.
The WSJ also ranked Babson College second in career preparation and 11th in student experience.
“Having Babson College recognized by The Wall Street Journal as the second-best college in the nation is a milestone for our community. It also signals that entrepreneurship as an academic discipline has transcended business education,” said Babson College President Stephen Spinelli Jr.
“At Babson, we go a step further by developing entrepreneurial leaders who pioneer new approaches and creative thinking across a wide range of industries and disciplines. These leaders and their countless impacts around the world play a critical role at this historic juncture for Babson and, more broadly, for entrepreneurial education as a whole.”
WSJ Methodology
The WSJ rankings are the second to feature U.S. undergraduate rankings published in two consecutive weeks. Forbes’ list was released last week, while the U.S. News list typically comes out in mid-September.
While neither Forbes nor the WSJ focus on undergraduate business schools, many of the top-ranked undergraduate business programs are at universities that rank highly on both lists. Poets&Quants For Undergrads plans to release its annual rankings of business schools in March 2025.
The WSJ has published the college rankings since 2016 with research partners College Pulse and Statista. The rankings are designed to assess how well U.S. colleges and universities prepare students for economic success, focusing on measurable outcomes like graduation rates and post-graduation earnings.
Last year, the association made major changes to its methodology, dropping academic surveys that evaluate schools’ reputations over the name recognition of big-name schools, and no longer grading schools according to how much money they spend on their education.
As a result, public universities have improved significantly in the rankings, with six of them, including University of California, Berkeley (8th) and Georgia Institute of Technology (9th), making it into the top 20. Last year, no public universities made it into the top 10 and only two made it into the top 20.
The WSJ rankings are divided into several categories that allow students to further narrow down their target schools based on their preferences, including overall university ranking, student experience, salary impact, social mobility and best value.
The following table shows the metrics and weights used to calculate the rankings.
WSJ Methodology Indicator Category Indicator Weighting Description Student Outcomes (70%) Salary Impact 33%
It measures how well a university raises its graduates’ salaries above expected levels.
Repayment Period Net Price 17%
The average net price is combined with the value added to the average salary of graduates to estimate how long it will take to pay back the cost of your education.
Impact on graduation rate: 20%
Evaluate the success of your college’s graduates against expectations based on student demographics.
Learning environment (20%), learning opportunities (4%)
Student satisfaction with faculty interaction, feedback, and quality of education.
Career Preparation 4%
Value career networking, advising, and applied learning opportunities.
Learning facilities 4%
Student satisfaction with the library, the internet, and the classroom.
Recommended score: 4%
It measures how likely a student is to recommend their university to others.
Character Score 4%
It assesses the development of personal qualities such as moral courage, resilience and community service.
Diversity (10%) Opportunities to interact with people from different backgrounds (5%)
Frequency of interaction between students and diverse peers.
Ethnic diversity 1.70%
Probability of random pairings with different ethnic backgrounds.
Acceptance of students from low-income families: 1.70%
Percentage of Pell Grant recipients.
Inclusion of students with disabilities 1.70%
Percentage of students with disabilities.
Context Numbers Average Net Price –
Annual cost of attendance taking into account grants and scholarships.
Adds value to graduate salaries –
The difference in income between attending college and graduating from high school.
See the full ranking methodology here.