On August 26, Forbes issued its annual rankings of the 500 best colleges in America. Cornell ranked 14th on the list between 13th place University of Chicago and 15th place University of California Los Angeles (UCLA).
The Ivy League was ranked:
| 2 | Columbia |
| 3 | Princeton |
| 6 | Harvard |
| 9 | Yale |
| 10 | Penn |
| 14 | Cornell |
| 17 | Dartmouth |
| 18 | Brown |
Forbes ranked its schools based upon undergraduate outcomes without regard to Cornell’s graduate or professional programs. Forbes used the following factors: Alumni salaries (20%) based upon the Payscale database. Student debt load (15%) from College Scorecard; Graduation rate (15%); Forbes American Leader lists (15%); Return on investment (15%) based upon the Third Way database; retention rate (10%); number of Fulbright, Truman, Goldwater and Rhodes scholarships (5%); and number of alumni who earned a Ph.D. over the last three years (5%).
Cornell relies upon national rankings such as Forbes and U.S. News to drive applications for undergraduate admissions. Cornell accepts about 8% of its applicants.
Because of the lag in the data used by Forbes, these rankings do not reflect the impact of recent Trump Administration actions on Cornell or other elite universities.
