U.S. News & World Report ranks MIT as #1 national university
MIT dethrones Princeton, which held the top spot for 15 consecutive years
On Sept. 22, the U.S. News & World Report announced that MIT would claim the top spot of its new 2027 National Universities Ranking, dethroning Princeton, which held the top spot for 15 consecutive years. Last year, the Institute was ranked second.
This year’s ranking shift was partly due to a methodology change from last year. Specifically, the updated rankings use data from the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard to evaluate the graduate earnings four years post graduation on a new metric called “earnings by major.” MIT had the highest score for this metric, which accounts for 5% of each school’s total score.
While LaMont Jones, managing editor for education at U.S. News, acknowledged that schools that have larger portions of graduates in high-earning majors might benefit from the methodology change in an interview with The Daily Princetonian, he added that the metric accounts for this and that it ultimately is intended to “be a more fair and accurate factor.”
“One could argue that depending on how good your earnings are, that could help mitigate the effects of whatever debt you have. On the contrary, if your earnings aren’t great, even if your debt isn’t great, it’s difficult to manage with low earnings,” Jones told the Princeton student-run newspaper.
The U.S. News rankings employ 17 factors, each chosen from literature review and in consultation with specialists in higher education. The scores in each sector are screened from publicly available sources and surveys conducted by the U.S. News within the eligible institutions. The information is then statistically analyzed and standardized. In each category, the top performer scores 100, while the others receive grades from 0 to 99. The factors are weighted and summed up. Overall, MIT received a perfect score this year, while Princeton scored 99 and Harvard, 96.
Beyond the top overall position in the National University category, MIT was also ranked first for undergraduate research and creative projects, second on the list of most innovative schools, and third on the list of best value schools.
“America’s economic strength, scientific leadership, and national security depend on world-class education and research institutions, and MIT is proud to be one of them,” MIT spokesperson Kimberly Allen said about the new rankings.
Despite appreciating U.S. News’s “well wishes,” Chris Peterson, Director of Communications and Special Projects at MIT Admissions, cautioned students against solely relying on rankings rather than personal preferences for selecting a college in a blog post on the MIT Admissions website.
“The construct of a universal, ordinal ranking of universities is at best irrelevant and at worst misleading to the individual question of finding the right fit for you,” Peterson wrote. “I don’t think MIT is the best university in the nation or the world. I don’t think that is a coherent thing that any university can be. I think MIT is the best university for particular students at a particular stage in their social and educational trajectory.”