The Best Big Colleges ranking compares the largest colleges in America across key statistics and student reviews using data from the U.S. Department of Education. List includes 4-year colleges with at least 15,000 undergraduate students. Learn where our data comes from.
| Factor | Description | Source | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Academics Grade | Niche Academics grade, which incorporates factors such as acceptance rate, quality of professors, as well as student and alumni surveys regarding academics at the school. | Multiple Sources | 40.0% |
| Value Grade | Niche Value grade, which incorporates statistics such as average loan amount, alumni earnings and student surveys regarding value. | Multiple Sources | 27.5% |
| Professors Grade | Niche Professors grade, which incorporates factors such as number of awards won by faculty, student-faculty ratio, as well as student surveys regarding professor quality. | Multiple Sources | 7.5% |
| Campus Grade | Niche Campus Quality grade, which incorporates factors such as quality of campus food and housing, as well as student surveys regarding facilities on campus. | Multiple Sources | 5.0% |
| Diversity Grade | Niche Diversity grade, which incorporates factors such as ethnic composition of the student body, proportion of international students and out-of-state students, as well as student surveys regarding diversity on campus. | Multiple Sources | 5.0% |
| Student Life Grade | Niche Student Life grade, which incorporates statistics such as safety, diversity, athletics and student surveys regarding student life. | Multiple Sources | 5.0% |
| Student Surveys on Overall Experience | Niche survey responses scored on a 1-5 scale regarding the overall experience of students and alumni at each school. | Self-reported by Niche users | 5.0% |
| Local Area Grade | Niche Local Area grade, which incorporates factors such as median rent, local crime rates, access to amenities, as well as student surveys regarding the local area around campus. | Multiple Sources | 2.5% |
| Safety Grade | Safety grade, which incorporates factors such as campus crime rate, local crime rate, as well as student surveys regarding health and safety services on campus. | Multiple Sources | 2.5% |
Statistics obtained from the U.S. Department of Education represent the most recent data available, as self-reported by the colleges.
For more details about how we calculate our rankings, click here. If you work for a school and would like to update your data, please claim your school.