Columbia University, ranked in the top 10 by some measures. Creative Commons photo by Flickr user Barbara (Jorbasa)

In recent weeks, as they do about this time each year, several publications have attempted to crown the best university in America.

So what is the best university in the country? The answer’s not quite so simple. In fact, just about the only thing these rankings agree on is that they really don’t agree what America’s best university is. U.S. News and World Report picked Harvard University and Princeton University to tie in the number one place, while the Times Higher Education World University Rankings placed the California Institute of Technology in the number one spot, sticking Harvard at number four and Princeton down at number six.

Washington Monthly’s rankings give the University of California – San Diego the win, with Princeton, Harvard, and Cal Tech nowhere to be seen in the top 10. And while Forbes Magazine followed U.S. News in selecting Princeton as its number one school, its number two school is Williams College – a school that doesn’t even appear on any of the other rankings.

(Scroll to the bottom of this article to see all the top 10 lists)

How useful are rankings then, if they can’t even agree on a top contender?
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Welcome to the fall. It’s not only the start of college classes, but also typically marks the release of major college rankings. As we’ve discussed before, rankings are controversial, and each methodology has strengths and weaknesses. Rather than make a big deal about each new ranking, we’re just going to link you to two of the most well-known, and let you use them as you see fit (or take some cues from the New York Times).

1) US News and World Report Best Colleges 2012
Winner: Harvard University, Princeton University (tied for #1)

2) QS World University Rankings 2011/12
Winner: Cambridge University (the top U.S. university was Harvard University at #2)

Also worth looking at: the Washington Monthly rankings released at the end of August, which aim to be “a different kind of college ranking” based on how much value the college creates. Their #1? The University of California – San Diego.

Finally! After complaining that previous rankings don’t take into account the differences for international students (and taking some time to create a ranking of our own), we’ve finally found a ranking specifically for foreign students. Newsweek has come up with a list of its top colleges for international students.

Newsweek‘s top 10 schools for international undergraduates:

1. Mount Holyoke College (women-only school)
2. Yale University
3. Macalester College
4. Princeton University
5. Swarthmore College
6. Grinnell College
7. Brown University
8. Wellesley College
9. Babson College
10. Williams College
(see numbers 11-25 on their website)

The ranking is determined on the basis of the school’s diversity (including percentage of international students), average financial aid for international students, and percentage of spending on student services.

Screenshot from the Department of Education's College Affordability and Transparency Center

The U.S. Department of Education recently launched a great new website, the College Affordability and Transparency Center, designed to help students get information about the cost of an undergraduate college education.

One of the neatest features is a little tool that lets you look at lists of institutions with the highest/lowest tuition and highest/lowest net prices. The net cost lists are particularly interesting – they take into account all the costs of attending university (tuition, fees, housing, books, etc.) and subtract the average amount of aid received in order to find out the true average cost for a student.

But international students beware. That list of net costs only applies to domestic students – and for public colleges, it only applies to in-state or in-district students. Some colleges DO offer a lot of aid to international students, and make an effort to keep the net cost low, but they may not be the same colleges that offer a low net cost to domestic students or state residents.

Here’s a side-by-side comparison of the top 10 highest and lowest net cost lists you’d get using the college cost tool, and the top 10 for international students, based on our calculations.  You can see right away that the results are quite different for international students.

1) Lowest Net Cost

4-year Private Non-Profit Institutions:

4-year Public Institutions:

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This chart comes from a new Institute of International Education (IIE) survey measuring how prospective students view different study abroad locations.  According to their data, the U.S. is viewed as having the most diverse, highest quality and most welcoming educational system … as well as the highest tuition and most complex visa procedures.

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The British Council has completed a new survey, ranking countries in terms of how supportive they are of international students.  According to the BBC, Germany came out on top, largely because foreign students pay the same in tuition fees as home students.  Germany also teaches many degrees in English, reducing language barriers.

The top 6 (as reported by the BBC):

• 1. Germany
• 2. Australia
• 3. UK
• 4. China
• 5. Malaysia
• 6. US

This is a different sort of ranking than the others we’ve shared here in the past, which have typically tried to identify the “best” schools in terms of quality of education.

Malaysian universities are chasing higher rankings as a way to demonstrate their competitiveness on the world stage, but how much stock should we put in university rankings?

The New York Times looks at the validity of university rankings, wondering whether, given that rankings are so objective and unscientific, they should hold the cache that they do.

Take a look at some previous links about college rankings and what they mean…

A new study ranks countries in terms of how accessible and how affordable higher education is.  Finland came out on top in both categories.  The U.S. came in 12th in affordability and 4th in accessibility (via The Chronicle of Higher Education).

The Washington Post’s College, Inc. blog discusses the meaning of the National Research Council’s doctoral program rankings (which, apparently, you need a PhD to decipher).

Previous posts on university rankings:

Should you trust university rankings?

Yet more university rankings

U.S. universities still best in the world, says U.K. magazine

Last week we shared the results of two rankings of international universities – the THE and US News and World Reports (based on the QS rankings) – which came to different conclusions as to which universities are the best in the world.

The Hindustan Times looks at why different rankings produce different results, and why it’s important to dig beneath the surface to understand how a ranking is generated.

On the heels of last week’s World University Rankings comes U.S. News and World Reports‘ World’s Best Universities ranking.  This list ranks schools around the world based on their attraction to international students and faculty.

UPDATE: Not a fan of rankings? You’re not alone.  Check out what Australian universities have to say about these sorts of lists.

In the Times Higher Education annual World University Rankings, the top 5 universities are all in the U.S.   Forbes has a roundup of the results, noting that U.S. universities take 72 of the top 200 spots.

International Counselor looks at the top 20 most generous schools for international students, using his own calculations to figure out where you’re most likely to get aid

CBS Money Watch lists the 12 most popular universities for international students