Forbe's Best Colleges

by Jalakin on Aug 12, 2025 2:55 PM EDT

In a slight break from sports material, Forbe's release their rankings of the best colleges in America today. As usual Vanderbilt is among the best in the nation. However only 2 SEC schools were ranked in the top 100. Find out how your school was ranked after the jump.

Rank	University	Cost	Student Population
43	Vanderbilt	$52,303	12,093
93	Florida	$32,093	51,474
150	Georgia	$33,070	33,070
284	South Carolina	$35,097	27,488
295	Mississippi (Ole Miss)	$25,800	15,289
323	Louisiana State	$25,260	28,810
336	Alabama	$31,996	27,014
368	Mississippi State	$24,149	17,824
399	Arkansas	$27,340	19,194
434	Auburn	$29,726	24,530
453	Tennessee	$32,576	30.410
507	Kentucky	$27,636	26,054

Only Vanderbilt was ranked in the top 50 among colleges in America. Florida was the only other SEC school in the top 100 of the rankings. Florida was able to do this despite having almost double the student population of every other SEC school and four times the number of students as Vanderbilt. Pretty impressive to me for a public university. Georgia also had a good ranking at #150. Kentucky came in as the only SEC school ranked below 500. The gap between the each school from South Carolina to Arkansas is relatively small, going no larger than 31 spots. The largest gap between SEC schools is that between Georgia' s ranking and South Carolina's ranking; 134 spot drop in the rankings. This shows a large gap between the top 3 educational bodies in the SEC and the rest of the conference.

The rankings are compiled using the following information and weights I was able to thanks to dxf04:

No. 1: Student Satisfaction (27.5%)
Student Evaluations from RateMyProfessor.com (17.5%)
Freshman-to-Sophomore Retention Rates (5%)
Student Evaluations from MyPlan.com (5%)

No. 2: Postgraduate Success (30%)
Salary of Alumni from Payscale.com (15%)
Listings of Alumni in Who's Who in America (10%)
Alumni in Forbes/CCAP Corporate Officers List (5%)

No. 3: Student Debt (17.5%)
Four-year Debt Load for Typical Student Borrower (12.5%)
Student Loan Default Rates (5%)

No. 4: Four-year Graduation Rate (17.5%)
Actual Four-year Graduation Rate (8.75%)
Predicted vs. Actual Four-year Graduation Rate (8.75%)

No. 5: Competitive Awards (7.5%)
Student Nationally Competitive Awards (7.5%)

A FanPost gives the opinion of the fan who writes it and that fan only. That doesn't give the opinion more or less weight than any other opinion on this blog, but the post does not necessarily reflect the view of TSK's writers.

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Comments

If kentucky is 507 they must be below division 2 schools. Correct?

120 fbs schools, a little more than that in fcs schools and then division 2.

I'm all about covering the spread and moneylines. Glory favors the bold. Chance favors the prepared mind. Luck, well i have that too. University of Utah goes to the Pac-12 conference in 2011. I expect them to compete immediately for the conference CG. Brock Lesnar will defeat Cain Velasquez. Womens MMA, the next big thing in sports. 3 weeks till the first game of college football. UTAH vs Pitt. September 2nd 2010.

by wolfmanshowlforever on Aug 12, 2025 3:31 PM EDT reply actions

It might rank them below some FCS schools and div 2 schools depending on the academic strength of the school

The best rank colleges on Forbes list were the extremely exclusive private schools such as Ivy League and other such higher academic colleges and universities. Some of these schools don’t have good football teams and instead concentrate on academics. This doesn’t much if any bearing on sports. There are other FCS and FBS schools ranked lower such as University of Memphis #538, UTEP #511, Boise State University #545, University of Cincinnati #542, and Kansas State #530. Each of these has a strong sports team but a low ranking. Then you have schools without strong sports but higher rankings: University of Holy Cross #49, University of Miami (Ohio) #243, Lafayette College #61. So yes there are FCS and Div 2 schools rated higher but there are also FBS and FCS schools rated lower.

by Jalakin on Aug 12, 2025 4:15 PM EDT up reply actions

Thanks for clearing that up.

by wolfmanshowlforever on Aug 12, 2025 4:18 PM EDT up reply actions

No problem

I just find various rankings whether sports or academics interesting.

by Jalakin on Aug 12, 2025 4:20 PM EDT up reply actions

your the man. where is utah and byu and tcu?

by wolfmanshowlforever on Aug 12, 2025 4:26 PM EDT up reply actions

They are ranked pretty good except TCU.

BYU #136, Utah #188, and TCU #426. So BYU and Utah are ranked higher than every SEC school but Vandy, Florida, and Georgia according to Forbes.

by Jalakin on Aug 12, 2025 4:30 PM EDT up reply actions

*you mean ranked pretty well?

by the DMc on Aug 13, 2025 4:38 PM EDT up reply actions

There is a reason I have a Human Resources Degree and not English

Stupid little nuances of a language that has several hundred rules and exceptions for almost all of them.

by Jalakin on Aug 13, 2025 8:44 PM EDT up reply actions

it's better than spanish

I don’t want to have that language as my primary

"JASON HEYWARD STRIKES AGAIN" :Strongbad

by southman on Aug 15, 2025 8:18 AM EDT up reply actions

Who needs English?

I’m never going to England!

"You know, we had a lot of fun tonight. But there's nothing funny about vapor lock! It's the third most common cause of cars stalling. So please, take care of your car and get it checked!" -Joe Namath

by billycthulhu on Aug 17, 2025 2:13 PM EDT up reply actions

oh rly?

"It's here, it's here, it's finally here" :Strongbad on football season

by southman on Aug 17, 2025 5:21 PM EDT up reply actions

And BYU is higher than Georgia

by Jalakin on Aug 12, 2025 4:31 PM EDT up reply actions

WHAT?!?

how blind are those people?

"JASON HEYWARD STRIKES AGAIN" :Strongbad

by southman on Aug 12, 2025 6:09 PM EDT up reply actions

All I know is what the rankings are based on according to Forbes.

They are based on quality of education, student achievements, and student experience.

by Jalakin on Aug 12, 2025 8:37 PM EDT up reply actions

That’s really not hard to believe given the student happiness and completion variables. The “4 year graduation rate” pretty much guarantees that institutions which draw students from higher SES are going to do better (i.e., higher prestige and priced schools). Go figure: students from wealthier families finish college more quickly.

Honestly, I don’t know that any of those attributes say anything about the quality of education at the colleges and universities measured, but then it’s Forbes so that’s probably not the point.

not drunk, just overserved

by Gen. Stoopnagle on Sep 7, 2025 5:53 PM EDT up reply actions

Here is the link to the Forbes rankings

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2010/94/best-colleges-10_Americas-Best-Colleges_State_22.html

by Jalakin on Aug 12, 2025 4:32 PM EDT up reply actions

thanks for the link.

by wolfmanshowlforever on Aug 12, 2025 4:35 PM EDT up reply actions

A complete rundown of the methodology used in these rankings.

http://www.forbes.com/2010/08/01/best-colleges-methodology-opinions-colleges-10-ccap.html
A few puzzling metrics there. 18% of a school’s score comes from student evaluations on RateMyProfessor.com?

by dxf04 on Aug 12, 2025 8:00 PM EDT reply actions

Thanks dxf04

I new student experience (aka student evaluations) were part of it, but I didn’t know they were 18%.

by Jalakin on Aug 12, 2025 8:39 PM EDT up reply actions

I also notice that postgraduate success is 30%.

And they weigh 4 year graduation rate at 17.5%

by Jalakin on Aug 12, 2025 8:42 PM EDT up reply actions

I edited the post to reflect that information

by Jalakin on Aug 12, 2025 8:47 PM EDT up reply actions

Listings of Alumni in Who's Who in America (10%)

Really?

Team Speed Kills. All SEC, all the time.

by cocknfire on Aug 14, 2025 3:10 AM EDT reply actions

Yeah that is a little stretch by Forbes

Because all you usually have to do is pay to be listed in that with only modest accomplishments.

by Jalakin on Aug 14, 2025 10:55 AM EDT up reply actions

What is really interesting is last year they including Faculty research accomplishments.

And this year replaced that with the 5% from the student evaluations on MyPlan.com. To me the research accomplishments show continued involvement in your field, and credit for that university for employing the faculty member. Whereas the student evaluation is unneeded when you already have 17.5% from another evaluation on RateMyProfessor.com.

by Jalakin on Aug 14, 2025 11:00 AM EDT up reply actions

Tennessee

I’m kind of surprised it’s so low, at least compared to other SEC schools. The recently instituted lottery is supposed to have helped retain some higher quality applicants. A lot of the wealthy students from Nashville choose to go to Bama or Miss, because they have reputations as great party schools, even though they know they’re making an academic sacrifice.

"Infield hits are sexy, because they require technique."

-Ichiro

by VivaLosBravos on Aug 14, 2025 5:44 PM EDT reply actions

I think the Hope scholarship is actually having a slightly different effect.

While it is keeping a lot more kids in state at UT and other universities, the kids that have higher grades and achievements can still go out of state with enough scholarships regardless of where they go. But the Hope scholarships are increasing your enrollment of middle tier students that might meet the scholarship requirements but cant garner enough scholarships to go out of state, or in my sisters case she gets paid to go to the University of Memphis thanks to the Hope scholarship and other financial aid. So overall the Hope still doesn’t effect your higher qualified students as much as the state was hoping it would. And by getting more middle tier students your grades and achievements increasingly trend towards normal and make the top students grades less relevant as they are brought down by the increased enrollment. But that is just my opinion.

by Jalakin on Aug 14, 2025 7:25 PM EDT up reply actions