American colleges and universities have been through and seen a lot this year, especially with some exchanging legal fire with US President Donald Trump. The recent past has especially encountered multiple US campuses making headlines on the controversial side, with students activism peaking, especially in light of pro-Palestinian protests.

With all that context in mind, US News and World Report has turned up the heat on the whole US college debate by releasing its ‘best universities’ rankings this week. Both Harvard and Columbia universities particularly became subjects of contentious discussions.

The first of the two elite schools has been embroiled in legal skirmishes with the MAGA leader over a bunch of reasons, including campus activisms. Harvard’s federal funding and international student enrollment are some of the recent points of concern that have got the Trump administration hooked. Despite the endless, bitter back and forth between the university and the government, Harvard held on to its spot in the Top 3 rankings of the American publisher.

ALSO READ

Columbia University, which especially became the hub of widespread campus unrest last year over full blown-out demonstrations, encampments, arrests and a lot more, also stood high at #15 on the publisher’s 2026 Best National Universities list. While US News made the choice to include the college in its latest rankings, it noted allegations about Columbia’s false data submissions had led to its removal from several such lists in 2022.

Here’s where the rest stood:

2026 Best National Universities – Top 20

  1. Princeton University
  2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
  3. Harvard University
  4. Stanford University
  5. Yale University
  6. University of Chicago
  7. Duke University
  8. Johns Hopkins University
  9. Northwestern University
  10. University of Pennsylvania
  11. California Institute of Technology
  12. Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
  13. Brown University, Providence
  14. Dartmouth College, Hanover
  15. Columbia University, New York
  16. University of California, Berkeley, California
  17. Rice University, Houston, Texas
  18. University of California, Los Angeles
  19. Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee
  20. Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

2026 Top Public Schools: National Universities – Top 10

  1. University of California, Berkeley
  2. University of California, Los Angeles
  3. University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
  4. University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill
  5. University of Virginia, Charlottesville
  6. University of California, San Diego, La Jolla
  7. University of Florida, Gainesville
  8. The University of Texas–Austin
  9. Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta
  10. University of California, Davis
ALSO READ

2026 Best National Liberal Arts Colleges in the US – Top 10

  1. Williams College, Williamstown
  2. Amherst College, Amherst
  3. United States Naval Academy, Annapolis
  4. Swarthmore College, Swarthmore
  5. Bowdoin College, Brunswick
  6. United States Air Force Academy
  7. Claremont McKenna College
  8. Pomona College, Claremont
  9. Wellesley College, Wellesley
  10. Carleton College, Northfield
  11. Harvey Mudd College, Claremoth

2026 Top Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the US

  1. Spelman College, Atlanta
  2. Howard University, Washington DC
  3. Morehouse College, Atlanta
  4. Tuskegee University
  5. Florida A&M University, Tallahassee
  6. Xavier University of Louisiana, New Orleans
  7. Hampton University
  8. North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Greensboro
  9. Morgan State University, Baltimore
  10. Delaware State University, Dover