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 30th, and it was still 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:
No. 30: University of Florida
No. 72: Florida State University
No. 76: University of Miami
No. 112: University of South Florida
No. 150: Florida International University
No. 156: University of Central Florida
No. 214: Florida Atlantic University
No. 294: New College of Florida
No. 330: University of North Florida
No. 336: University of West Florida
No. 341: Florida Gulf Coast University
No. 358: University of Florida, Online
No. 377: Rollins College
No. 492: Jacksonville University
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 article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Forbes' list of Top Colleges shows drop for University of Florida
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