Here are the best colleges in Massachusetts and the northern United States, according to a new list

The new list ranks the best colleges in Massachusetts, including comparisons to other colleges across the country and in the northern United States.

Personal finance company WalletHub has published its ranking best universities in the united states to study in 2025, and several Massachusetts universities made the list.

To compile the list, WalletHub compared more than 700 universities on 30 key metrics, such as student selectivity, costs and funding, and career outcomes.

“While attending these schools may be quite expensive, the return on investment is worth it,” the WalletHub analyst said.

Here are which Massachusetts schools made the list.

What are the best universities to study in 2025?

WalletHub released its ranking of the best universities to attend in 2025, and several Massachusetts colleges topped the list.

Harvard University took third place on the list, and fourth place went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Here are the 10 best universities in the country:

Princeton University
Yale University
Harvard University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dartmouth School
Rice University
California Institute of Technology
Carnegie Mellon University
Northwest University
Johns Hopkins University

What are the best colleges in Massachusetts to attend in 2025?

WalletHub’s list of the best universities to study at in 2025 shows that Harvard University is the best university in Massachusetts.

According to WalletHub, Harvard ranked high on the list, in part because of its competitive admissions rate of 3%. Additionally, WalletHub stated that another reason it ranked high is because full-time professors make up over 55% of the full-time instructional staff.

Finally, according to WalletHub, the average income of Harvard graduates is over $95,000 ten years after enrolling in school, the 23rd highest among universities analyzed.

How the best universities were analyzed

WalletHub said it analyzed the best universities to attend in 2025, analyzing more than 700 universities across seven criteria: student selectivity, cost and funding, human resources, campus safety, campus experience, educational outcomes and career outcomes.

These seven metrics are further broken down into categories such as admission rate, standardized test scores, and net cost. Each school was then given a score in each category, which was summed and weighted to produce an average.