Alongside the usual back-to-school excitement, Northwestern undergraduate students had extra reason to celebrate on the first day of classes last September. Their University reached its highest-ever spot — number six — in U.S. News & World Report’s 2025 rankings.
The jump from ninth to sixth place coincided with a subtle shift in the rankings formula that eliminated first-generation graduation rates and performance and boosted the weight assigned to Pell Grant graduation metrics. NU performs well on both Pell-related indicators, which could have contributed to its rise in the rankings.
Described as America’s most influential college list, the annual U.S. News “Best National University Rankings” list has long been criticized for exerting an “outsize influence on students and parents, who use (it) as a proxy for prestige,” according to The New York Times.
In 2023, U.S. News responded to growing backlash with what it called its “most substantive overhaul” since the rankings began in 1983. The new formula eliminated five factors that tended to favor affluent schools, including alumni giving and high school class standings, and redistributed nearly 20% of the weight to other indicators, with an emphasis on outcomes for economically disadvantaged students.
The reworked formula shaped the 2024 list, causing dramatic movement among schools in the middle — some jumped more than 50 spots — while top-ranked schools, including NU, only moved a little. NU edged up from 10th to ninth between the 2023 list, published in September 2022, and the 2024 list, published in September 2023.
For the 2025 list, the new formula was slightly tweaked, propelling NU up three places. U.S. News considered 17 factors in its rankings, which The Daily compiled into seven categories: graduation and retention, social mobility, post-graduation outcomes, financial resources, faculty resources, standardized testing and academic evaluations. Each of these factors’ respective ranking and weighted percentage contributes to NU’s overall sixth place accolade for 2025.
The Daily analyzed NU’s performance in each of the seven categories and compared it to those of the other top 10 universities.
Graduation and Retention (31-36% of a college’s score)
The graduation and retention category is composed of three separate measurements: graduation rates (16-21%), retention rates (5%) and graduation rate performance (10%).
One of the two most influential factors in a school’s ranking, U.S. News assesses graduation rates by comparing the four-year rolling average of schools’ share of students who complete their degrees within six years. The 2025 list uses data from 2014-17. Schools not assessed on standardized tests (because fewer than 50% of students submitted scores) have graduation rates weighted more heavily — at 21%, rather than 16%, of the total.
The chart below displays 2023 data, offering a one-year snapshot of graduation outcomes. Nine of the top 10 universities graduated at least 95% of students, with the California Institute of Technology slightly lower at 93%.
Retention rates track the average percentage of first-year students who return for their second year. The 2025 rankings are based on a four-year rolling average from 2019-22.
The accompanying chart shows full-time student retention from 2023, offering a recent look across all class years. All top 10 schools retained over 95% of their students, with Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University topping the list at 99%.
Last in this category, the graduation rate performance indicator evaluates whether schools exceed U.S. News’ expected graduation rates, predicted using factors like instructional spending and STEM enrollment. Institutions that surpass the publication’s expectations earn higher scores. Because U.S. News uses its own formula, this chunk of the ranking methodology can’t easily be compared across schools.
Social Mobility (11% of a college’s score)
Previously incorporating both Pell Grant and first-generation outcomes, the social mobility measure now relies solely on Pell Grant data due to limitations in first-generation data reporting. The combined score includes Pell Grant graduation rates (5.5%) and Pell Grant graduation performances (5.5%), based on data from 2014-17 for the 2025 rankings.
The first half — a school’s Pell graduation rate — is a four-year average of the share of Pell recipients graduating within six years. U.S. News gives more credit to schools with higher Pell student enrollment.
This visualization shows an unweighted snapshot of six-year Pell graduation rates in 2023. Most of the top 10 universities show only slight drops (0-2%) in Pell graduation rates compared to their overall graduation rates.
Stanford University and Yale stand out with 7% and 4% drops, respectively. NU is the only school where Pell students slightly outperformed the overall population in 2023 graduation rates, increasing by 1%.
The Pell graduation performance score compares Pell graduation rates to those of non-Pell students and adjusts for Pell enrollment.
This chart presents a proxy for U.S. News’ Pell graduation performance score, intended to account for both equity and access. While U.S. News doesn’t disclose its exact formula, this index approximates the score by dividing a school’s Pell graduation rate by its non-Pell graduation rate, then multiplying that ratio by the percentage of students receiving Pell grants.
Although Duke University’s Pell graduation rate was relatively high, for example, its lower Pell enrollment significantly limited its performance score. With 21% of NU students receiving Pell Grants in 2023 — tying with Harvard as the second-highest in the top 10 behind Johns Hopkins University at 22% — these metrics may have given NU a meaningful boost in the 2025 rankings.
Post-Graduation Outcomes (10% of a college’s score)
The post-graduation outcomes category is composed of two metrics: post-graduation earnings (5%) and borrower debt (5%).
Post-graduation earnings measure the percentage of federal loan recipients earning more than the average high school graduate five years post-graduation — data which is no longer available through College Scorecard. U.S. News uses data from 2015-16 grads in 2020-21 for the 2025 list. Schools with 95% or more above the earning threshold receive full points.
The following chart uses publicly available data as a proxy, showing the share of alumni earning over 150% of the federal poverty line for a single individual three years after graduation in 2018. While not identical, the data suggests which schools may promote stronger short-term financial outcomes.
The second half of this category, borrower debt, assesses the average accumulated federal loan debt among student borrowers, using data from 2019-21 for the 2025 list.
The chart below presents median debt levels among student borrowers in 2020. NU and the University of Pennsylvania top the list with $14,000, while Johns Hopkins and Stanford borrowers have the lowest median debt, just under $10,000 each.
Financial Resources (8% of a college’s score)
This measure reflects how much schools spend per student on core educational functions like instruction, research, student services and “related educational expenditures.” The 2025 list relies on 2022 expenditure data.
The chart below visualizes 2023 data to approximate U.S. News’ methodology, aggregating each institution’s reported spending on instruction, research, student services and academic support. As with U.S. News’ calculation, spending on sports, dorms and hospitals is excluded.
Among the top 10 universities, spending per student varied dramatically. MIT invested more than $320,000 per student, nearly triple NU’s $108,000, in 2023. Despite this discrepancy, NU’s tuition was higher than MIT’s in 2023.
Faculty Resources (11% of a college’s score)
This category comprises three factors to assess a school’s commitment to faculty and instruction: faculty salaries (6%), percentage of full-time faculty (2%) and student-faculty ratios (3%). The 2025 rankings are based on data from 2023.
The faculty salaries metric compares the average salaries for full-time instructional faculty. U.S. News adjusts the data for regional cost of living.
This chart demonstrates the same data without regional adjustments. Stanford, Princeton University and MIT top the list, whereas NU falls on the lower end.
A small proportion of a schools’ ranking is determined by its percentage of full-time faculty. U.S. News calculates this by comparing the number of full-time to part-time instructional faculty, with higher proportions of full-time faculty receiving more credit.
This visualization illustrates that all top 10 schools employed most of their instructional faculty full-time in 2023, with Johns Hopkins and Stanford nearing 100%.
The last aspect of the faculty resources category is the student to faculty ratio. A lower ratio suggests smaller classes and more direct instruction.
Caltech and MIT had just three students per faculty member in 2023, the lowest in the group.
Standardized Tests (0-5% of a college’s score)
This factor includes standardized test scores only if more than 50% of entering students submitted them. If schools don’t meet this threshold, or the data is missing on the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, the 5% weight shifts to graduation rates.
U.S. News uses a school’s reported median SAT and ACT scores and weighs their average based on the proportion of students that submitted scores. U.S. News’ methodology involves converting the scores into a 0-100 percentile scale. The 2025 list is based on data from 2022 and 2023.
The chart below approximates U.S. News’ measure by converting ACT scores to the SAT scale and weighing based on participation.
Harvard, Johns Hopkins, MIT and Stanford lead the list. NU finishes last among the top 10 schools, though all of them performed well in this category in 2023. Caltech’s test score data was not available through IPEDS.
Academic Evaluations (24% of a college’s score)
This category comprises two factors: peer evaluation (20%) and publications (4%).
Peer evaluation makes up one-fifth of a school’s ranking, and is designed to reflect how college leaders perceive the academic reputation of peer institutions. Each year, presidents, provosts and admissions deans rate schools on a five-point scale. For the 2025 rankings, U.S. News sent surveys to 4,665 academics and received a 30.7% response rate.
Because school-specific scores are not public, this metric cannot be visualized. As one of the most heavily weighted and least transparent components in the formula, the peer assessment factor draws a significant portion of the rankings’ overall criticism.
The publications metric measures faculty research output and impact, contributing a small percentage to the overall score. U.S. News evaluates performance using four bibliometric indicators: citations per publication (1.25%), field-weighted citation impact (1.25%), publication share in the top 5% of journals by CiteScore (1%) and publication share in the top 25% of journals by CiteScore (0.5%). U.S. News gathers data for this category from an external information analytics business: Elsevier.
All in all?
Among universities that already excel across nearly every metric, even subtle shifts in ranking formulas can rearrange the top 10. While it’s impossible to attribute NU’s rise from ninth to sixth to any single factor, the school’s strong performance in Pell Grant metrics line up with U.S. News’ recent changes.
Although the overall rankings methodology has significantly shifted to emphasize access and deemphasize prestige, the rankings remain an imperfect and highly contentious measure. With 20% of the score rooted in subjective peer assessment and an additional 14% relying on private information and external sources, only around 65% of the total weighted criteria can be analyzed school-to-school.
When it comes to individual metrics, however, some might be more important than others for people’s own college decisions. This Interactive School Comparison Tool allows users to toggle between metrics and select up to 10 schools to compare.
Methodology
This article provides a general overview of how U.S. News & World Report conducts its annual college rankings. Because a large portion of the publisher’s methodology is not readily available, the chosen metrics and data are intended to offer a recent snapshot of how the top 10 schools compare across categories rather than a complete picture of how the rankings were determined.
The analysis and charts reflect the most recent available data from the College Scorecard and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, both federal sources that U.S. News uses in its own rankings. While many of the figures were simply cleaned up in Google Sheets, The Daily calculated several using a combination of data sets. A more thorough explanation of these calculations is included below.
Pell graduation performance: Calculated by dividing the six-year Pell Grant recipient graduation rate (IPEDS, 2023) by the six-year non-Pell Grant recipient graduation rate (IPEDS, 2023), then multiplying that ratio by the percentage of students awarded Pell Grants (IPEDS, 2023).
Percentage of students above poverty line (three years): Calculated by dividing the number of federal aid students earning at least 150% of the national poverty level three years after graduation (College Scorecard, 2018) by the total number of federal aid students working three years after graduation (College Scorecard, 2018). This calculation serves as a proxy for U.S. News’ “college grads earning more than a high school grad” category.
Educational resources per student: Calculated by aggregating instructional expenses (IPEDS, 2023), research expenses (IPEDS, 2023), student services expenses (IPEDS, 2023) and academic support (IPEDS, 2023) per student to create a total that proxies U.S. News’ “financial resources per student” category.
Percentage of full-time instructional staff: Calculated by dividing the number of full-time instructional staff (IPEDS, 2023) by the total number of instructional staff (IPEDS, 2023) to determine the percentage that are full-time.
Standardized testing: Calculated by multiplying the ACT median score (IPEDS, 2023) by 44.5 as a conversion factor to the SAT scale, then averaging that result with the combined SAT math and English median scores (IPEDS, 2023). If more than 50% of students submitted test scores (either SAT or ACT), the average score was divided by the average percentage of submitters across both tests (IPEDS, 2023). If not, the metric was excluded.
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