Overview
- The Manhattan Institute’s City Journal published its inaugural evaluation of 100 U.S. colleges and universities.
- The list measures 68 factors grouped into Leadership Quality, Educational Quality, Student Experience, and Outcomes.
- Its methodology combines government data and other ranking sources with newly developed indicators to assess academic and civic formation.
- The analysis argues some elite universities underperform on open inquiry and curricular rigor, while schools such as the University of Florida rate highly on those measures.
- City Journal positions the list as a practical guide for families and as a lever to encourage institutional reforms beyond reputation-driven rankings.