Princeton, Williams Top New US News & World Report List Of America's Best Colleges

Princeton University and Williams College are once again the best schools in America, according to U.S. News & World Report's 2015 rankings.

U.S. News divides schools into two major national lists - universities and liberal arts colleges - based on the degrees and research opportunities they offer. Princeton topped the university list for the second year in a row, while Williams has held the top college spot for the past 12 years, according to a U.S. News press release.

Last year, U.S. News changed its methodology to emphasize "outcome-related measures" - such as graduation and retention rates - which now account for 30% of a school's ranking. As U.S. News noted last year, incorporating graduation rate performance data for all schools "improves the Best Colleges ranking methodology as it's an important outcome measure that focuses on the difference between each school's predicted graduation rate ... and its actual graduation rate."

Here are the national universities that U.S. News rated in the top 10 for 2015:

1. Princeton University

2. Harvard University

3. Yale University

4. Columbia University

4. Stanford University

4. University of Chicago

7. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

8. Duke University

8. University of Pennsylvania

10. California Institute of Technology

Here are the liberal arts colleges that U.S. News rated in the top 10 for 2015:

1. Williams College

2. Amherst College

3. Swarthmore College

4. Wellesley College

5. Bowdoin College

5. Pomona College

7. Middlebury College

7. Carlton College

8. Claremont McKenna College

8. Haverford College