BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Alabama colleges and universities earned a dozen top-10 spots in the 2027 U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges rankings released Tuesday, including strong showings by historically Black institutions, regional colleges and universities and undergraduate nursing programs.
Auburn University reached No. 100 overall among 420 national universities, up two places from last year. Among public colleges, Auburn ranks 46th nationally, up three spots from last year.
Tuskegee University ranked third nationally among 76 historically Black colleges and universities, up one spot from last year. Tuskegee also earned five additional top-10 rankings among 152 Southern regional universities, placing second for social mobility, fifth among private regional universities and seventh overall. It also ranked seventh for undergraduate teaching and 10th for innovation.
Talladega College ranked first for best value among Southern regional colleges and fourth for social mobility. Spring Hill College ranked sixth overall among Southern regional colleges and fifth among private colleges in the same category. There are 95 colleges in the Southern regional colleges category.
The University of Montevallo earned sixth place for best value among the regional universities in the South.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham’s undergraduate nursing program jumped seven places to No. 6 nationally – out of 671 ranked programs – the only top-10 finish earned by the state’s national universities. The University of Alabama earned 19th place in the same category.
Alabama’s institutions of higher education earned rankings in three dozen categories.
How the rankings are determined
U.S. News assigns each institution an overall score based on up to 17 weighted measures of academic quality and student success. Student outcomes, including graduation and retention rates, social mobility and graduates’ earnings, account for more than half of that score. Other factors include academic reputation and faculty resources.
Institutions are then ranked according to their scores within categories based on their academic missions, including national universities, national liberal arts colleges, regional universities and regional colleges.
This year, U.S. News introduced a measure comparing graduates’ earnings four years after graduation with those of graduates in the same academic fields. The measure uses federal College Scorecard data for employed federal financial aid recipients and replaces a previous measure of graduate indebtedness.
Changes to the Carnegie Classifications also moved roughly 20% of previously ranked institutions into different categories, meaning their 2027 rankings cannot be directly compared with their 2026 rankings. U.S. News said those changes, along with the new earnings measure and other adjustments, produced more movement in this year’s rankings than in either of the previous two years.
The complete rankings for Alabama colleges and universities are available on the U.S. News & World Report website.