These days, talk of college feels fraught with discussions about labyrinthian student loan legislation, rapidly rising tuition costs and the sovereignty of thought at universities. But that national tenor hasn\u2019t changed U.S. News & World Report\u2019s tune: The outlet has released its annual ranking of the top universities in the U.S., sending prospective students into a tizzy over application deadlines and long gone graduates like myself into a thought spiral: Were those loans really worth it? Depends on the day. Have I lost my physical diploma forever? Almost certainly.<\/p>\n
According to U.S. World News & Report\u2019s Best National Universities Rankings<\/a> for the 2025\u201326 school year,\u00a0Illinois is now home to four of the country\u2019s best universities. Of those four universities, two are stationed in Chicago. These rankings are far from random, too: U.S. News & World Report analyzed both third-party and direct report data from over 1,700 universities across the nation. From there, they crunched numbers like graduation and retention rates, borrow debt averages and post-college earnings to yield a definitive ranking.<\/p>\n Illinois\u2019 highest ranked university is, unsurprisingly, the University of Chicago, coming in at the No. 6 spot\u2014just behind Yale and Stanford. Trailing behind the University of Chicago is Northwestern University, which claimed the No. 7 spot. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign made the cut at No. 36, and University of Illinois Chicago clocked in at No. 84. How\u2019s that for bragging rights?<\/p>\n Now, there are plenty of ways to channel your Prairie State pride without the six-figure tuition price tag. The University of Chicago is home to some of the best museums in the city: Smart Museum of Art<\/a> and Renaissance Society<\/a>. Better yet, admission to those museums is free. Northwestern\u2019s Mary & Leigh Block Museum of Art<\/a>\u2014which is free and open to all\u2014is currently hosting a can\u2019t-miss exhibition<\/a> of Helen Frankenthaler\u2019s deeply emotive works on paper until December 14, 2025. And the University of Illinois-Urbana happens to be a longtime partner of PYGMALION<\/a>, a multi-day music festival in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, that\u2019s hosted acts including Explosions in the Sky, Run the Jewels, Sylvan Esso and Grizzly Bear.<\/p>\n