One of the best-known college rankings came out with the new list for 2026, and a tri-state university took the top spot, edging out some other famed institutions.
New Jersey’s Princeton University was named the Best National University by U.S. News & World Report, which puts out the yearly list. There were more than 1,700 colleges and universities across the country evaluated for the highly referenced list.
Princeton just topped Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which ranked second on the list. Harvard was third, followed by Yale and Stanford rounding out the top five.
In all, there were 17 schools in New York and New Jersey that were ranked among the top 100 universities in the country. Cornell was 12th on the list, while Columbia was 15th, New York University was 32nd, Rutgers – New Brunswick was 42nd, and the University of Rochester was 46th.
Here’s a quick look at other NY/NJ schools that cracked the top 100:
- Stony Brook – 59
- Binghamton – 73
- Rutgers (Newark) – 75
- Syracuse – 75
- University at Buffalo – 75
- NJIT – 80
- Stevens – 80
- Yeshiva University – 84
- RIT – 88
- Fordham – 97
- Rutgers (Camden) – 97