Best Colleges in Big Cities
Top-performing schools in urban settings, ranked by graduation rate and 10-year earnings.
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA · Private
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ · Private
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA · Private
Mount Sinai Phillips School of Nursing
New York, NY · Private
Yale University
New Haven, CT · Private
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA · Private
Columbia University in the City of New York
New York, NY · Private
Georgetown University
Washington, DC · Private
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY · Private
Duke University
Durham, NC · Private
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, CA · Private
Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus
Atlanta, GA · Public
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA · Private
Boston College
Chestnut Hill, MA · Private
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Worcester, MA · Private
Brown University
Providence, RI · Private
Santa Clara University
Santa Clara, CA · Private
Lehigh University
Bethlehem, PA · Private
University of Chicago
Chicago, IL · Private
Bentley University
Waltham, MA · Private
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN · Private
University of California-Berkeley
Berkeley, CA · Public
Rice University
Houston, TX · Private
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA · Private
Northwestern University
Evanston, IL · Private
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy, NY · Private
Northeastern University
Boston, MA · Private
Jewish Theological Seminary of America
New York, NY · Private
St. Joseph's College of Nursing
Syracuse, NY · Private
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD · Private
How this list is built
Schools in IPEDS city locales (codes 11-13), ranked by graduation rate and 10-year earnings. For-profit schools are not included, and each list shows at most 30 schools.
Locale data: IPEDS HD. Graduation rate: IPEDS. Earnings: College Scorecard.
Read our source policy →Locale data: IPEDS HD. Graduation rate: IPEDS. Earnings: College Scorecard. Rankings reflect available data and do not constitute endorsement.