Traditional university rankings based on factors such as admissions selectivity, faculty research citations and endowment corpus, are of minimal utility for undergraduate education. Early this year EducationWorld tied up with the US-based Launcpad Rankings LLC to rate and rank America’s top colleges/ universities providing best undergrad education

Twelve years after EducationWorld published its inaugural EW India Higher Education Rankings rating and ranking the country’s best colleges and universities, the EW higher ed rankings have gone international. In a first for an Indian media publication, EW has tied up with the US-based Launchpad Rankings LLC to rate and rank America’s best colleges and universities.
Why USA? Because it’s the #1 foreign study destination choice of Indian students. In 2023-24, India surpassed China to become America’s prime source country for international students with 3.3 lakh ambitious youth emplaning to US universities for higher education.

Readers, parents, students and career counselors may justifiably query the need for EW rankings of America’s best universities when internationally reputed agencies and publications including the London-based Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), Times Higher Education, US News & World Report, Forbes, among others have been publishing elaborate league tables ranking the world’s best universities.

The explanation is that assessing America’s best universities from the Indian perspective apart, QS, THE etc accord high importance to parameters such as research, faculty citations in refereed journals, internationalism — assessment metrics that are good for institutional reputation and selecting postgraduate programmes but of limited value to students in search of high quality undergraduate education. The USP of the EW-Launchpad rankings is that it evaluates America’s best colleges/universities under the parameters of teaching focus, class size, experiential learning, economic mobility and retention parameters that matter most to undergrad students because they have the biggest impact on the quality of the education experience they will receive.

The inaugural America’s Best Universities Rankings 2025 are conducted and compiled by Launchpad Rankings LLC, a US-based education research company supported by renowned educators drawn from American higher education and industry and led by a distinguished Steering Committee. Raymond Ravaglia, former Dean and Director of Stanford University Pre-Collegiate Studies, explains the need for the EW-Launchpad Rankings: “Choosing a college/university is a monumental decision. It will profoundly shape the rest of the life of school-leavers. Parents prepared to invest heavily in their children’s higher education want more than institutional reputation for their children. They surely want to enroll them in a college or university — in America they are synonymous — where they are given personalised education in small-sized classes, provided experiential learning through mentoring and internships in companies and institutions, ultimately leading to good postgraduate admissions and career opportunities after graduation. The EW-Launchpad Rankings 2025 evaluate America’s best universities for undergrad education according to these parameters,” says Ravaglia, a Stanford University alum and 27-year veteran of Stanford University who founded Stanford’s Pre-Collegiate Program and the globally acclaimed Stanford University Online High School.

According to Ravaglia, traditional university rankings are too often based on factors such as admissions selectivity, faculty research citations, informal surveys, and size of endowment. These parameters certainly contribute to institutional prestige, but matter little for the undergraduate experience or quality of education undergrads receive.

“To ideate and design the greenfield EW-Launchpad Rankings of America’s Best Universities we constituted a committee of accomplished educationists and entrepreneurs (see box). The EW-Launchpad Rankings 2025 are the outcome of answers to these questions:

• Which universities offer small-size classes to enable genuine faculty-student interaction that can lead to meaningful mentorship and personal connections essential for letters of recommendation?
• Is the faculty dedicated to teaching undergraduates? Is the university constituted to prioritise such teaching by faculty or is much of the teaching delivered by non-faculty adjuncts or graduate students?
• Is experiential education through internships and co-ops provided? Is it required? For international students especially, unless the university is firmly committed to ensuring that all students can obtain internships they will often find themselves graduating without this vital element that is key to finding high quality employment.
• Does the college prepare students for successful careers after graduation? In particular, do students coming from the ranks of lower socio-economic families become high earners, so that their career success is clearly due to the university rather than to family connections?
  By highlighting these factors, the EW-Launchpad Rankings prioritise undergraduate education and individual student experience above institutional prestige,” explains Ravaglia.

Parameters of Undergrad Education Excellence

In a detailed note, the Launchpad Rankings Committee explains the five core parameters ideated to assess America’s best universities for undergrad students.

Data sources
IPEDS. The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) is an annual survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics.

College Scorecard. Launched by the Department of Education in 2015, College Scorecard utilises IPEDS data and other federal sources to provide critical information including average cost, graduation rates, student debt, and post-graduation earnings.

Common Data Set. A standard set of data published annually by most colleges and universities but not generally collected into a common dataset.

1. Economic mobility
Economic mobility is crucial because it indicates how effectively a college bridges education and post-graduation career progression. It demonstrates whether the institution helps students from diverse economic backgrounds achieve substantial improvement in their financial prospects and career paths.

Assessment metrics. Support for upward economic mobility, especially for lower-income students, based on Pell Grant recipient percentages, post-graduation earnings, and graduation rates drawn from IPEDS and College Scorecard.

2. Experiential learning
Provision of experiential learning opportunities ensures that students acquire workplace experience, professional skills, industry connections which significantly enhances post-graduation employability and career readiness.

Assessment metrics. Evaluation of hands-on learning opportunities (internships, co-ops), through study of College Scorecard, IPEDS, the Common Data Set, as well as material drawn from university course catalogs and degree requirements.

3. Teaching focus
Faculty focus on teaching is critical for undergrad students. Faculty undistracted by research responsibilities fully integrated with campus life provide students consistent mentorship, personalised instruction, and meaningful academic relationships. Universities organised to ensure that instructional staff are full members of the faculty and not adjuncts or graduate student assistants.

Assessment metrics. IPEDS data indicating the extent to which full-time, dedicated faculty (not adjuncts or graduate students) teach undergraduate classes.

4. Expected class size
Smaller class sizes correlate with higher student engagement, better academic outcomes, and stronger relationships between students and faculty. Relationships students form with their professors are where the highest value of a university education is to be found as these relationships are vital for career advancement.

Assessment metrics. Study of typical class sizes identified using IPEDS data and the Common Data Set.

5. Retention Rate
High retention rates signal student satisfaction and effective academic and social support systems. Colleges with high retention rates demonstrate commitment to creating inclusive and supportive campus cultures where students feel valued, understood, and motivated to complete their education successfully. No matter how good a college may seem, if students are not eager to return for a second year, there is likely something wrong beneath the surface.

Assessment metrics. Study of IPEDS data to ascertain percentage of first-year students who return for second year.

All these five parameters of undergrad education excellence have been accorded considered weightage — economic mobility (25 points), teaching focus (25), experiential education (20), class size (20), and retention (10). Every university’s total score is determined by summing parameter points adjusted for cases where the retention score is below the median since a below-average retention score suggests that a college/university may have problems beneath the surface.

Why Cluster Rankings

In the inaugural EW-Launchpad Rankings 2025, 780 sufficiently well-reputed colleges/universities (in the opinion of the Launchpad Steering Committee) have been drawn from America’s 6,000 tertiary education institutions. Instead of narrowly ranking them in numerical order, for this inaugural release, the Steering Committee has preferred to group them into Diamond, Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Honorable Mention categories and rank them in clusters.

“While numerical scores offer precision, the Launchpad Steering Committee opted for cluster rankings because it makes comparisons simpler and allows for other factors such as preferred location, family association, etc. Numerical scores suggest overly precise distinctions between institutions and signal levels of precision often not justified by quality of data. Cluster rankings also expand the range of parents/students choice,” says Ravaglia.

For school-leavers choosing a college involves balancing emotional desire with practical considerations. By evaluating universities under the parameters of teaching focus, class size, experiential education opportunities, retention record and post-graduation economic mobility, the EW-Launchpad America’s Best Universities Rankings 2025 identify institutions providing high quality undergraduate education in the United States●