After a year of sitting in ninth place, Brown fell to 13th in the 2025 US News Best Colleges Rankings. It was the only school to fall out of the top 10 this year.
The national rankings published by U.S. News and World Report are based on a variety of metrics, including graduation rates and research output. More than half of a school’s rank is related to “how successful an institution is at enrolling and graduating students from different backgrounds with manageable debt and postgraduation success,” according to the U.S. News.
Brown returns to the same spot it held in the publication’s 2023 rankings. Last year, U.S. News ranked the University ninth, the highest it has sat on the annual list since 1997. Brown is now tied with Columbia for 13th, the second lowest ranking of an Ivy League only ahead of Dartmouth. Both Brown and Penn dropped four spots, the most of any university in the Top 20.
The three top-ranked schools remain the same as last year, with Princeton taking the top spot and MIT and Harvard following behind. A leaked list of the top 10 schools was published by the Daily Pennsylvanian earlier this month, the first sign that Brown did not retain a top-10 ranking.
Last year, the publication made significant methodology changes, including adding first-generation graduation rate to its ranking calculations before taking it away for its 2025 rankings. Besides removing first-generation graduation rates, the methodology remained largely unchanged.
Brown continued to score highly in the publication’s other rankings. The University was ranked first for “writing in the disciplines” and third for undergraduate teaching programs — the same position it occupied in last year’s rankings.
Despite falling from the Top 10, Brown fares better in the U.S. News rankings compared to college rankings from other publications.
The Wall Street Journal, which measures how well colleges set up their students for financial success, placed Brown at 36th. This year, Brown moved up 31 spots in the WSJ ranking, previously ranking as 67th.
Cate Latimer is a senior staff writer covering faculty and higher education. She is from Portland, OR, and studies English and Urban Studies. In her free time, you can find her playing ultimate frisbee or rewatching episodes of Parks and Rec.
