The Best Colleges You’ve (Probably) Never Heard of

Do you know Elizabeth City State University, a historically Black college, in North Carolina? What about SUNY-Geneseo in New York’s Finger Lakes region? Both schools were top performers in the Washington Monthly’s annual college rankings.

The magazine puts a premium on graduation rates, overall costs to students and families, whether graduates end up in good-paying jobs doing meaningful work, and how ready they are for advanced degrees.

Editor-in-Chief Paul Glastris discusses the methodology behind the innovative rankings, as well as some of the surprise hits in this year’s list. Also from this month’s issue, Glastris discusses contributing writer Anne E. Kim “hacking” Google’s online certification program, and Jamaal Abdul-Alim’s reporting on colleges going directly to students to offer admission, rather than waiting for them to apply.