U.S. News & World Report just released their 2026 ranking of the country’s best colleges, and one school in Connecticut made the top 10.
The annual ranking evaluates over 1,700 colleges across the country by using 17 factors to measure academic quality and graduate success, including cost of attendance, graduation rate and student-faculty ratio.
In this year’s ranking, Yale University represented Connecticut in the top 10, finishing in a tie for fourth place with Stanford University.
Here’s why.
According to U.S. News & World Report, Yale placed fourth for its prestigious 4% acceptance rate, its 5:1 student-faculty ratio and its value, with an average salary of $81,765 six years after graduation. In fact, Yale ranked third overall for best value school, just one place behind its longtime rival Harvard.
Yale also ranked sixth for undergraduate research and eighth for undergraduate teaching, with its economics program tying for second-best in the country.
Here are the top 15 colleges in the country, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2026 ranking:
The full ranking can be found here.