Of course, I don't see what metric they used to measure and it's only one source's opinion, however, which colleges they see as top of the line might surprise you, most are state colleges.
Since one of the metrics that went into the test was the cost of the school (and it doesn't sound like they took financial aid into account at all), this doesn't surprise me. I bet they used in-state tuition for all of them, too, since part of the "point" of this list is that state colleges can be solid choices. Which they can, but students should not fail to consider private universities because of sticker shock without looking into their financial aid offerings.
