Babson retained its ranking as the second best college in the country for a second year in a row. It broke into the top-10 in 2024, a significant jump from its ranking in 2022 when it placed 126th.
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A WSJ article announcing the list on Monday said the WSJ/College Pulse rankings focus on the question of how well colleges prepare students for financial success.
“More than any other factor, it rewards the boost an institution provides to its graduates’ salaries, beyond an estimate of what they could have expected from attending any college,” the article read.
Stanford and Babson were the only schools to score an overall rating of 90 or better in this year’s rankings, beating out Ivy League schools Yale University (No. 3), Princeton University (No. 4), and Harvard University (No. 5).
At Babson, “hands-on learning begins right away,” the Journal reported, pointing to the college’s yearlong freshmen course “Foundations of Management and Entrepreneurship,” where groups of students receive a loan of up to $3,000 to fund their own business.
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Babson President Stephen Spinelli Jr. celebrated the Wellesley school’s ranking in a statement on the college’s website.
“To retain our spot at number two for a second consecutive year, and third straight year in the top 10, amid this heightened focus, is a testament to the consistent impact our students and alumni make across industries around the world,” Spinelli said.
To calculate the rankings, the Wall Street Journal worked with College Pulse, an online survey and analytics company founded by two Dartmouth College graduates. They also consulted with data scientists at Statista.
Rankings were based on the following components, each carrying a different weight: Student outcomes (salary impact, years to pay off the net price, graduation rate); learning environment (learning opportunities, career preparation, learning facilities, and the extent that students would recommend their college); and diversity (ethnic diversity and inclusion of students with disabilities and lower family earnings).
Here are the top 20 colleges and universities in Massachusetts, according to the rankings, followed by the top 20 in the country.
20 best colleges and universities in Mass. and their rankings, according to WSJ
2. Babson College
5. Harvard University
11. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
12. Bentley University
58. College of the Holy Cross
60. Amherst College
99. Worcester Polytechnic Institute
108. Williams College
111. Wellesley College
132. Boston College
160. Boston University
180. Wentworth Institute of Technology
195. Stonehill College
210. Northeastern University
258. Suffolk University
283. Simmons University
298. Tufts University
307. University of Massachusetts, Lowell
319. University of Massachusetts, Amherst
324. Brandeis University
20 best colleges and universities in the United States, according to WSJ
1. Stanford University
2. Babson College
3. Yale University
4. Princeton University
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5. Harvard University
6. Claremont McKenna College
7. University of California, Berkeley
8. Columbia University
9. University of Pennsylvania
10. Davidson College
11. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
12. Bentley University
13. University of California, Davis
14. University of California, Merced
15. Harvey Mudd College
16. Georgia Institute of Technology, Main Campus
17. San José State University
18. Cornell University
19. Loyola University Maryland
20. University of Notre Dame
Nick Stoico can be reached at nick.stoico@globe.com.