18 Michigan Colleges Ranked Amongst The Nations Best

It cannot be understated how important of a decision it is to decide where you will further your education. I'm thankful that apprenticeships and trade schools have become more popular, but college is still the most used post-graduation route for recent high school graduates. Where you choose to attend college and your motivation to finish can determine how the rest of your life goes.

There are so many different factors that have to be taken into consideration when a student and their family make the decision on where to further their education. Obviously, the most important to most families are the academic success of the institution in their desired major, proximity to their home, and campus life.

For those of us in Michigan, we're lucky enough to have dozens of great colleges and universities to choose from right here in the Mitten state. Every year, Wall St Journal puts out a list of the best colleges in the United States and this year, Michigan showed out. In fact, there were a total of 18 colleges and universities ranked on the list of almost 600 schools.

MLive reports:

This year’s rankings were made in collaboration with College Pulse, an online college demographic survey platform, and Statista, an online data-gathering platform. The rankings were determined based on student outcomes, which included salary impact and years to pay off college prices, learning environment and diversity.

The University of Michigan continues to be the best college in the state of Michigan as they were the highest ranked in the state at 25, while the University of Detroit Mercy was close behind at 36. Alongside those two, Michigan State University, Michigan Technological University, and Kettering University were ranked inside of the top 200 at 114, 163, and 198 respectively.

The other 13 colleges and universities rank as follows:

• Grand Valley State University at No. 223
• University of Michigan-Dearborn at No. 266
• Oakland University at No. 280
• Central Michigan University at No. 334
• Hope College at No. 359
• Wayne State University at No. 413
• Andrews University at No. 426
• Calvin University at No. 428
• Western Michigan University at No. 458
• Cornerstone University at No. 493
• Eastern Michigan University at No. 499
• Alma College at No. 544
• Northern Michigan University at No. 584

Northern Michigan University managed to just squeeze onto this list as they are the last school ranking at 584. Standford, Yale, and Princeton were all ranked in the top 5 with Stanford being considered the best college in America.