Forbes Magazine's List of America's Best Colleges
Encyclopedia
In 2009 Forbes
Magazine, along with The Center for College Affordability and Productivity, compiled a list of America's Best Colleges based on "the quality of the education they provide, the experience of the students and how much they achieve".
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
Magazine, along with The Center for College Affordability and Productivity, compiled a list of America's Best Colleges based on "the quality of the education they provide, the experience of the students and how much they achieve".
2009 List
Rank | Name | State | Cost | Freshman Class Size |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | United States Military Academy United States Military Academy The United States Military Academy at West Point is a four-year coeducational federal service academy located at West Point, New York. The academy sits on scenic high ground overlooking the Hudson River, north of New York City... |
NY | 0 | 1,263 |
2 | Princeton University Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution.... |
NJ | 49,830 | 1,243 |
3 | California Institute of Technology California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering... |
CA | 48,990 | 236 |
4 | Williams College Williams College Williams College is a private liberal arts college located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It was established in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams. Originally a men's college, Williams became co-educational in 1970. Fraternities were also phased out during this... |
MA | 49,530 | 540 |
5 | Harvard University Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country... |
MA | 50,250 | 1,666 |
6 | Wellesley College | MA | 50,026 | 596 |
7 | United States Air Force Academy United States Air Force Academy The United States Air Force Academy is an accredited college for the undergraduate education of officer candidates for the United States Air Force. Its campus is located immediately north of Colorado Springs in El Paso County, Colorado, United States... |
CO | 0 | 1,286 |
8 | Amherst College Amherst College Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009... |
MA | 50,230 | 439 |
9 | Yale University Yale University Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States... |
CT | 51,400 | 1,318 |
10 | Stanford University Stanford University The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San... |
CA | 51,760 | 1,703 |
11 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in... |
MA | 50,100 | 1,048 |
12 | Swarthmore College Swarthmore College Swarthmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1,500 students. The college is located in the borough of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 11 miles southwest of Philadelphia.... |
PA | 50,381 | 372 |
13 | Columbia University Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the... |
NY | 51,406 | 1,356 |
14 | Centre College Centre College Centre College is a private liberal arts college in Danville, Kentucky, USA, a community of approximately 16,000 in Boyle County south of Lexington, KY. Centre is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution. Centre was founded by Presbyterian leaders, with whom it maintains a loose... |
KY | 39,200 | 336 |
15 | Haverford College Haverford College Haverford College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in Haverford, Pennsylvania, United States, a suburb of Philadelphia... |
PA | 51,637 | 327 |
16 | Boston College Boston College Boston College is a private Jesuit research university located in the village of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA. The main campus is bisected by the border between the cities of Boston and Newton. It has 9,200 full-time undergraduates and 4,000 graduate students. Its name reflects its early... |
MA | 52,060 | 2,167 |
17 | Northwestern University Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees.... |
IL | 52,120 | 2,078 |
18 | Bowdoin College Bowdoin College Bowdoin College , founded in 1794, is an elite private liberal arts college located in the coastal Maine town of Brunswick, Maine. As of 2011, U.S. News and World Report ranks Bowdoin 6th among liberal arts colleges in the United States. At times, it was ranked as high as 4th in the country. It is... |
ME | 50,570 | 488 |
19 | Vassar College Vassar College Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,... |
NY | 51,370 | 638 |
20 | Whitman College Whitman College Whitman College is a private, co-educational, non-sectarian, residential undergraduate liberal arts college located in Walla Walla, Washington. Initially founded as a seminary by a territorial legislative charter in 1859, the school became a four year degree granting institution in 1883... |
WA | 46,212 | 401 |
21 | University of Chicago University of Chicago The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890... |
IL | 53,310 | 1,306 |
22 | Kenyon College Kenyon College Kenyon College is a private liberal arts college in Gambier, Ohio, founded in 1824 by Bishop Philander Chase of The Episcopal Church, in parallel with the Bexley Hall seminary. It is the oldest private college in Ohio... |
OH | 49,260 | 456 |
23 | Carleton College Carleton College Carleton College is an independent non-sectarian, coeducational, liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota, USA. The college enrolls 1,958 undergraduate students, and employs 198 full-time faculty members. In 2012 U.S... |
MN | 50,000 | 489 |
24 | Colby College Colby College Colby College is a private liberal arts college located on Mayflower Hill in Waterville, Maine. Founded in 1813, it is the 12th-oldest independent liberal arts college in the United States... |
ME | 50,120 | 482 |
25 | Middlebury College Middlebury College Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college located in Middlebury, Vermont, USA. Founded in 1800, it is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges in the United States. Drawing 2,400 undergraduates from all 50 United States and over 70 countries, Middlebury offers 44 majors in the arts,... |
VT | 52,460 | 576 |