Top 10 Universities & Liberal Arts Colleges

It’s that time of year: cool, crisp nights; tailgate parties; drunken football fans—and U.S News and World Report’s list of the best colleges and universities in these United States. And if your kid’s got great SATs, help from related alumni and you’ve got more than $160,000 to pay for that four-year degree—no problem.

This year, annual tuition costs are helpfully positioned at the top (over $41,000 for Swarthmore, really?), giving credence to the argument put forth by PIMCO’s Bill Gross that college costs far outweigh intended return in post-graduation wages.  

“A mind is a precious thing to waste, so why are millions of America’s students wasting theirs by going to college?” Gross wrote in his monthly commentary in June. “All of us who have been there know an undergraduate education is primarily a four-year vacation interrupted by periodic bouts of cramming or Google plagiarizing, but at least it used to serve a purpose.”

He pointed to Peter Thiel, head of hedge fund Clarium Capital, who has established a foundation to give 20 grants worth $100,000 each to teenagers who pledge to drop out of school and become not just tech entrepreneurs but “world-changing visionaries.”

Don’t know if we’d recommend that route just yet, but here are the Top 10 national universities, as well as the Top 10 liberal art colleges, as rated by Morty Zuckerman’s crack staff.

The Top 10 National Universities

1. Harvard University (left) (tie)

Tuition and Fees: $39,849

1. Princeton University (tie)

Tuition and Fees: $37,000

3. Yale University

Tuition and Fees: $40,500

4. Columbia University

Tuition and Fees: $45,290

5. California Institute of Technology (tie)

Tuition and Fees: $37,704

5. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (left) (tie)

Tuition and Fees: $40,732

5. Stanford (tie)

Tuition and Fees: $40,569

5. University of Chicago (tie)

Tuition and Fees: $42,783

5. University of Pennsylvania (tie)

Tuition and Fees: $42,098

10. Duke University

Tuition and Fees: $41,958