TIME Names Wentworth One of America's Best Colleges

Wentworth Institute of Technology has been named one of America's Best Colleges by TIME. 

The ranking, published Aug. 25 and developed with the global data firm Statista, is the first edition of the list. It recognizes 500 institutions nationwide, selected from a field of roughly 2,600 U.S. colleges and universities that award bachelor's degrees or higher. 

TIME built the ranking around return on investment, evaluating which schools deliver the most value to students relative to what a degree costs. Student outcomes account for 75 percent of an institution's final score, making it by far the heaviest factor in the methodology. 

Student outcomes is also Wentworth's strongest category, scoring 70.65. The outcomes pillar is built by examining graduates' earnings, graduation rate, and return on education, which calculates how quickly the earnings gains from a degree offset its cost. 

The full ranking and methodology are available at TIME.com.