Student Experience

The methodology for this ranking was developed and executed in collaboration with our research partners College Pulse and Statista. Throughout, we use the latest data available for analysis.

The WSJ/College Pulse Student Experience ranking scores colleges based on the following components. The weight each component is given in the ranking is indicated as a percentage.

• Campus facilities (33%): Student satisfaction with the facilities available on campus, including those relating to food, housing and extracurricular activities, based on our student survey.
• Community and social life (33%): Student satisfaction with the sense of community, emotional-health and mental-health support, sustainability, safety on campus, and party scene, based on our student survey.
• Diversity (33%): A combination of diversity in terms of ethnicity, inclusion of students with lower family incomes, inclusion of students with disabilities, and international diversity, all based on government data, together with the quality and frequency of opportunities to interact with students from different backgrounds, based on our student survey.

We also display the following figures to provide context. These are the components of “Years to pay off net price” in the Best Colleges ranking:

• Average net price: The average annual overall cost of attending the college, including tuition and fees, room and board, and books and supplies, taking into account any grants and scholarships, for students who received federal financial aid.
• Value added to graduate salary: The value added to graduates’ median salary attributable to attending the college. Estimated on the basis of the difference between the median earnings of the school’s graduates and the median earnings of high-school graduates in the state where the college is located.

Sources and definitions

• To inform this ranking, we commissioned one of the largest-ever independent surveys of verified college students and recent alumni in the U.S. College Pulse conducted a survey of 60,953 students and alumni online, between January and May 2023. Further information on how College Pulse collects data is available on its methodology page.
• Graduate salaries from 2019 and 2020 are taken from the U.S. Education Department’s College Scorecard. We looked at median salaries 10 years after enrollment for those who received federal financial aid.
• High-school graduates’ salaries by state are taken from the 2021 U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, which uses data from 2017 to 2021. We looked at the median salary among people whose highest educational qualification is graduating high school or the equivalent and who are ages 25 to 34.
• Average net price for the 2020-21 academic year is taken from the College Scorecard.
• Demographics from 2021 relating to diversity are taken from Ipeds and the College Scorecard.
• Ethnic diversity is measured using the Gini-Simpson Index.
• “Private” in the above table means “Private, not for profit.” We don’t include for-profit colleges in our ranking.
• All scores that aren’t formatted in years and months or in dollars are on a scale of 0 to 100.
• In the event of an exact tie for overall Student Experience score, Best Colleges scores are used as a tiebreaker to decide rank order.

Eligibility All U.S. colleges are eligible to be part of our ranking if they meet the following criteria:

• Title IV eligible, i.e., is an accredited university that’s eligible for federal financial aid.
• Awards four-year bachelor’s degrees.
• Located in the 50 states or Washington, D.C.
• Has more than 900 students.
• Isn’t insolvent.
• Isn’t for profit.
• We receive at least 50 valid responses from verified students or recent alumni to the student survey.
• The government data for the factors used to compile our Best Colleges ranking is collected and publicly reported.

U.S. service academies aren’t included in the ranking, as government data used in compiling our Best Colleges scores isn’t collected and publicly reported for them.

If you have any questions or feedback, get in touch with us at collegerankings@wsj.com