Acclaim for Hope College in recent college guides includes recognition as one of the nation’s most innovative schools in the newly released U.S. News & World Report 2025 Best Colleges rankings, which also list Hope among the top 100 liberal arts colleges in the country and in the top 1% out of all schools for undergraduate research experiences.
U.S. News & World Report released its 2025 Best Colleges rankings on Tuesday, Sept. 24. In recent months, Hope has also received recognition in best-/top-colleges guides by Forbes, Money magazine and Princeton Review, among others.
“We’re grateful that the outstanding holistic education that Hope provides is recognized nationally not just by one publication, but many,” said Nate Haveman, vice president of enrollment management at Hope. “For Hope to be included among the country’s best colleges and universities in multiple guides indicates a consensus that what happens here for students is exceptional.”
U.S. News & World Report 2025 Best Colleges names Hope 90th among the 204 institutions that it classifies as National Liberal Arts Colleges, out of the approximately 4,000 degree-granting post-secondary institutions in the United States. Hope was 100th last year. In addition to National Liberal Arts Colleges, the guide’s overall categories include National Universities, Regional Universities and Regional Colleges.
The guide ranks Hope 23rd among the most innovative National Liberal Arts Colleges. It is new recognition for the college that follows the 2021 launch of the “Hope Forward” initiative seeking to fully fund tuition for all students through a “pay it forward” model, and the 2022 “Anchored Tuition Pledge” that keeps tuition at the same rate throughout a student’s years at Hope.
Hope is 31st in the nation among institutions of all types — including major research universities and Ivy League schools — in the guide for Undergraduate Research/Creative Projects. Hope has been on the research/creative project list every year since the category debuted in the 2003 edition.
“The opportunity to participate in original collaborative research with faculty mentors has been a nationally recognized, distinctive hallmark of a Hope education for decades, and we’re proud to continue to stand among the country’s most elite institutions,” Haveman said. “Hope has more recently been receiving national attention for turning the business model of higher education on its head with the ‘Hope Forward,’ which we have no doubt has been an important factor in enhancing the college’s reputation as an innovator.”
Among National Liberal Arts Colleges, U.S. News & World Report 2025 Best Colleges also recognizes Hope as a Best Value School (87) and Top Performer on Social Mobility (164), and among all institutions nationally for Best Undergraduate Engineering – Non-Doctorate (94), Best Undergraduate Psychology (164) and Best Undergraduate Nursing (254).
The college’s best-/top- recognition in other guides released this fall include a variety of national and regional rankings.
Hope is one of approximately 320 colleges and universities highlighted in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2025. The guide includes schools that it considers “the best and most interesting institutions in the nation — the ones that students most want to know about.”
The newest Forbes: America’s Top Colleges guide places Hope 57th among liberal arts institutions nationally and 49th in the Midwest. The guide includes metrics such as alumni salary, debt, graduation rate, return on investment, retention rate and academic success.
Money magazine includes Hope among the 745 four-year colleges that it analyzes in its Best Colleges guide, awarding the college four stars. The institutions selected for the guide aren’t ranked but receive two to five stars based on data points related to quality, affordability and student outcomes.
Princeton Review cites Hope as one of the premier 151 colleges in the Midwest in its 2025 Best Regional Colleges rankings. The Princeton Review features a total of 631 colleges across seven zones — Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Northeast, South, Southwest, West and International — that are “academically outstanding and well worth consideration” in the college search.
The college maintains a more extensive listing of rankings by college guides on its website at hope.edu/rankings