CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – In the latest U.S. News and World Report Best National University Rankings, the University of Virginia ranked 24th among all schools and was rated as the fourth best public school in the country. In Washington Monthly’s 2025 Best Colleges for Your Tuition (and Tax) Dollars, UVA ranked 113th.

College rankings can help prospective students narrow the field of the endless options of higher education institutions across the country. They can also serve as validation for an institution and a chance to tout its elite status in research and academics. But in an interview with Cville Right Now, Lee Elberson, CEO of the Charlottesville based Clayborne Test Prep and Tutoring, noted that the chase for prestige and a lofty ranking may be leading to a narrowing of the prospective student pool and shifting towards different students admitted.

“Let’s say we rewind 20 or 30 years ago so maybe students applied to UVA with a with a 3.2 or a 3.3,” Elberson said. “At some point when it’s sought as prestigious and the student says, I want to go to the best, and they say UVA is the best, then the candidate pool is going to shift towards those upper echelons, and then the average GPA maybe moves to a 3.5.”

Rankings like the U.S. News list provide college applicants an idea of what type of academic resumé is required for admission using two primary figures.

“One of the primary criteria it uses is academic reputation,” Elberson said. “And so that academic reputation of an institution is pretty closely tied to SAT scores and GPA.”

Other criteria are considered as well including financial resources, student selectivity, and graduation rates. The institutions at or near the top of the U.S. News rankings (Princeton, MIT, and Harvard occupy the top three spots) are known for their elite academics, but most of these colleges also carry high tuition costs before aid. All schools inside the top 10 have tuition costs listed as greater than $60,000 per year.

Another publication has taken a different approach. Washington Monthly’s rankings methodology rewards schools that provide access to unwealthy students and those that place students into impactful social programs within their own community.

“I would say that this ranking system heavily values or heavily weights value and impact, and so value is affordability, and impact is student outcome and, you know, national service,” said Elberson.

The top-ranked college in their ranking for 2025 is Berea College: a small liberal arts school in rural Kentucky with an enrollment under 1,500 students. They provide low costs on tuition, students graduate with low debt totals, and many graduates stay within the region. Colleges that rank near the bottom of the list of Washington Monthly’s rankings have a combination of high costs for students with low post graduate earnings and high debt totals.

Both rankings look to provide students more context when making a potentially life changing decision. Elberson noted it could lead some to think about college on the whole slightly differently.

“Historically, colleges were meant to prepare students for the workforce. I think we’ve gotten away from that, and I think that’s especially true in certain degree programs in certain institutions,” said Elberson, “You can easily spend $150,000 at a university and not have any guarantees that you will be prepared for the workforce.”

Princeton University or Berea College? When a prospective student is looking for the best college, both can claim they are number 1.