By VANESSA SKILDUM

The U.S. News best college rankings are out for 2025, and Beloit College had some pretty high rankings: It came in tied for #16 in First-Year Experiences, tied for #18 in Most Innovative Schools, and even ranked #40 in Best Value Schools. 

The question that arises is what these ratings actually communicate and how they are decided. The U.S. News Best College Rankings debuted in 1983, and according to their website, they rank colleges to help those seeking degrees. 

A person’s level of education does affect their future salary and job opportunities. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor, and Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in 2023 show that the unemployment rate for those with a high school diploma was 3.9 percent and a median weekly earning of $899 compared to 2.2 percent unemployment and a $1,493 median weekly earning of those with a bachelor’s degree. 

“You wouldn’t buy a computer, cellphone, or car without making sure it was the best you could afford, given your budget. The same rule should apply in choosing a college”, says the website usnews.org. 

They recommend using the rankings to compare schools and get an idea of the different types of schools available, in addition to college visits and speaking with representatives from each organization. 

“The New York Times” article “The U.S. News College Rankings Are Out. Cue the Rage and Obsession” by Alan Blinder says that these scores “are also a source of millions of dollars [for U.S News] each year, as universities pay licensing fees to promote how they fared.” 

The article also says, “U.S. News says its education website attracts at least 100 million users yearly. And in the coming weeks, many universities, as they have long done, will assuredly print pamphlets, push out social media posts and instruct campus tour guides to tout their places in the rankings.”

Beloit College itself did just this. September 24, the exact day the college published an article on the website titled “Beloit Again Among U.S. News & World Report’s List of Nation’s Top Colleges.”

According to U.S. News, the rankings are determined by “17 key measures of academic quality for National Universities and 13 for National Liberal Arts Colleges, Regional Universities, and Regional Colleges.” 

Each factor is given a certain weight or percentage in a college or university’s overall score. Some statistics shift depending on whether or not the colleges or universities have usable SAT or ACT scores. 

The most influential measures include peer assessment, which is worth 20%, graduation rate performance, which is worth 10%, financial resources per student, which is worth 8%; and graduation rates, which are 16% for those with usable SAT or ACT scores and 21% for those without a usable score. 

U.S. News revamped its college rankings for the 2024 results, eliminating five factors, including alumni giving rates, undergraduate class sizes and high school class standing. 

The 2025 measures stayed similar, with minor tweaks. For example, for the measures of National Universities, both Pell Grant-recipient graduation rates and Pell graduation performance went from 3% to 5.5%. On the other side, first-generation graduation rates and first-generation graduate rate performance went from 2.5% down to 0%.

Featured Image Credit: Sophia Nitsche’25