Watch the video of UF’s graduate campus site in downtown Jacksonville
UF will build a downtown Jacksonville graduate campus between West Bay Street and West Forsyth Street
- The University of Florida dropped from #4 to #5 for public schools in Forbes’ 2025-2026 America’s Top Colleges rankings.
- Despite a challenging year for higher education, Forbes states American colleges still offer excellent undergraduate education.
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology reclaimed the #1 spot in the rankings.
Last year, the University of Florida was ranked No. 4 in the country for top public universities in the nation in Forbes’ List of America’s top colleges.
This year, it slipped a little. In the 2025-2026 list released Aug. 26, UF was ranked No. 5 among the public universities on the list, and 30th overall, the highest-ranking Florida school.
“To say it’s been a rough year for American colleges would be an understatement,” Forbes said in the introduction to the 2025 list. “Over the past eight months, President Donald Trump, his administration and Congressional Republicans have waged financial and cultural war on higher education — freezing research funds, punishing efforts at campus diversity, constricting the flow of foreign students, raising the tax on some college endowments and curbing the generosity of student loan programs.
“Despite this, American colleges are still delivering gold-standard undergraduate education,” the magazine said.
The top school this year? The Massachusetts Institute of Technology returned to No. 1, based on an analysis of 14 metrics Forbes used to determine which 500 schools “offer the best educational, financial and career outcomes for all students.” Schools were ranked based on outcomes for undergraduates, Forbes said.
Ivy League schools dominated the top of the list, with five of the eight in the Top 10 and all of them in the Top 20.
UF was named one of Forbes’ 10 “New Ivys” public schools in 2024, to recognize schools for “producing exceptional and highly employable graduates.” UF was not named to that list this year.
University of Florida scrambling for a new president
The University of Florida board of trustees on Aug. 25 voted to appoint Dr. Donald Landry, a professor of medicine at Columbia University, as the university’s interim president, a week before current interim President Kent Fuchs’ extended contract is set to expire. Fuchs returned as interim president in 2024 after the previous president, Ben Sasse, abruptly resigned after just 17 months.
The university’s sole finalist for president, Dr. Santa Ono, the former president of the University of Michigan, was rejected by the board of governors in June after hours of questioning over his handling of pro-Palestinian protests on campus, gender-affirming care, climate change and his response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and his past support of DEI programs.
How did Florida colleges rank in Forbes’ America’s Top Colleges 2025 list?
Here’s where Florida colleges ranked among the 500 in Forbes’ list this year:
What are the Top 10 schools on Forbes’ America’s Top Colleges 2025 list?
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts
- Columbia University, New York
- Princeton University, New Jersey
- Stanford University, California
- University of California, Berkeley, California
- Harvard University, Massachusetts
- Williams College, Massachusetts
- John Hopkins University, Maryland
- Yale University, Connecticut
- University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania
(This story was updated because an earlier version included an inaccuracy.)
