Who We Are

BestColleges is a comprehensive resource for current and prospective students, giving them the tools they need to make informed decisions about their educational paths and careers. Whether students are looking for financial aid, comparing college programs, or exploring school disability accommodations, we offer free guides and rankings that can take the stress out of their online search.

Editorial independence is our top priority, and we provide these resources because we believe transparent information and data-driven content are powerful tools for accessing high-quality education. Our experts do all the fact-finding for students, and we can even help identify the schools that match their ambitions, geographic location, and financial circumstances.

How We Make Money

Every company needs to generate revenue, and at BestColleges, we do this by advertising certain programs on behalf of schools that compensate us for student referrals.

This means that when users make school selections using our program search tool, or when they interact with an ad labeled as “ad” or “advertising disclosure” on BestColleges.com, we may receive compensation. We strive to be as transparent as possible when it comes to separating our advertised and editorial content — the advertising placements through which we receive compensation are unambiguously identified with terms like “ad” or “advertising disclosure.”

How We Maintain Editorial Independence

Our proprietary methodology for evaluating college programs ensures that our guides and rankings are unbiased. The data sources we use, which include the National Center for Education Statistics, the Common Data Set Initiative, and Peterson’s, are all recognized for providing accurate information about education and occupations around the United States. We also incorporate unique data that we obtain through online surveys when we believe such data will provide a more complete and valuable experience for the user in making a college selection. In addition to maintaining the highest standards for our sources, we strictly maintain the following guidelines to ensure we remain impartial and independent in our content:

  • We do not rank any schools or programs on BestColleges.com based on any type of financial relationship with any school partner, period.
  • Schools never receive preferential treatment. All the schools in our rankings are evaluated using the same criteria and are awarded total scores that reflect the hard data. We do not award schools rankings that do not directly reflect variables such as admission rates, retention rates, and program costs.
  • We take editorial integrity seriously and are constantly evaluating our content for bias, recency, and accuracy. Our experts, writers, and editors all abide by a consistent set of editorial standards focused on the balanced presentation of facts and responsible journalism.
  • All schools in our rankings are nationally or regionally accredited, providing an extra layer of quality assurance and transparency in our rankings.

If you have additional questions regarding our data or editorial content, please consult our FAQ page.

Last Updated: July 15, 2019