The USNWR rankings can be interesting to look at, but actually they tell us very little. In their college rankings, we know some Ivy League school will usually be #1, and a bunch of state schools will be #250 +++. The gap from #1 to #250+ is enormous and tells us little or nothing about the schools involved.
Some sort of really objective set of measures and rankings of all schools on a scale of 1 to 10 would tell us a lot more.
If one wants to be PRACTICAL ( i.e., how useful in real life a bachelor’s degree from a college gets one a good job ), then PAYSCALE will probably be a more useful site.
See here: https://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report/bachelors
You might assume that the highest earners in the country come from well-known Ivy League Schools like Harvard or Princeton, but the truth is, the highest median alumni salaries often come from students who attended small colleges with strong engineering programs. If we focus on early career earnings, elite military schools reign supreme. For bachelor’s-only graduates, the United States Military Academy at West Point and the Naval Academy at Annapolis are often home to high earners. The fact that West Point and Naval Academy alumni graduate with military experience probably increases their worth to employers.
The colleges with the highest-earning alumni almost all have one thing in common – they produce a lot of engineers and other workers with valuable STEM degrees. However, that doesn’t mean that everybody should become an engineer.
PayScale publishes this data to help students understand the typical salaries they will likely go on to earn, and the corresponding amount of student debt they can afford to take on.
But don’t count liberal arts schools out just yet. Even more classically styled liberal arts schools, like Grove City College or Hillsdale ( both do not even accept Federal aid) produce well-paid graduates.
Prospective students should just be aware that a liberal arts degree may mean it takes them a longer time to get settled in the career of their dreams, but their well-rounded, analytical skill sets and ability to clearly communicate can set them up for successful careers.