Forbes: Clark among 'Top Colleges,' No. 66 in Northeast, 68th in Research Universities

Forbes “America's Top Colleges” report screenshot Clark University appears in Forbes’ annual “America’s Top Colleges” report, at No. 146 on the list of 650 schools recognized this year.

Besides the overall ranking, Clark is ranked No. 114 among Private Colleges, No. 68 in Research Universities, and No. 66 in the Northeast.

This is the seventh year Forbes has partnered exclusively with the Washington, D.C.-based Center for College Affordability and Productivity (CCAP) to compile rankings that focus on quality of teaching, great career prospects, high graduation rates and low debt levels.

According to Caroline Howard of Forbes, this year’s “Top Colleges” list “comes down to small, student-centric, liberal arts colleges vs. large, brainy, research-oriented universities closely associated with science, technology, engineering and math.”

“The Forbes 7th annual Top Colleges ranking reveals higher education in flux, ongoing debate between the value of liberal arts vs. STEM degrees and a winning formula of high student satisfaction and graduation rates, alumni career success and low student debt,” Howard wrote.

Forbes’ rankings are based on five general categories: post-graduate success (32.5%), which evaluates alumni pay and prominence, student satisfaction (25%), which includes professor evaluations and freshman to sophomore year retention rates, debt (25%), which penalizes schools for high student debt loads and default rates, four-year graduation rate (7.5%) and academic success (10%), which rewards schools whose students win prestigious scholarships and fellowships like the Rhodes, the National Science Foundation and the Fulbright or go on to earn a Ph.D.

The rankings can be found at https://www.forbes.com/top-colleges/list/.

To see more Clark University rankings and recognition, visit clarku.edu/rankings.

Founded in 1887 in Worcester, Massachusetts, Clark University is a liberal arts-based research university addressing social and human imperatives on a global scale. Nationally renowned as a college that changes lives, Clark is emerging as a transformative force in higher education today. LEEP (Liberal Education and Effective Practice) is Clark’s pioneering model of education that combines a robust liberal arts curriculum with life-changing world and workplace experiences. Clark’s faculty and students work across boundaries to develop solutions to complex challenges in the natural sciences, psychology, geography, management, urban education, Holocaust and genocide studies, environmental studies, and international development and social change. The Clark educational experience embodies the University’s motto: Challenge convention. Change our world.

Forbes: Clark among ‘Top Colleges,’ No. 66 in Northeast, 68th in Research Universities