The 14 best public colleges in America

There's a lot of debate about the pros and cons of private versus public colleges. But when you get down to the numbers, many great schools exist both categories.

Business Insider recently released its annual list of the 50 best colleges in America, which emphasized schools with high graduation rates, early-career earnings, and top-notch student life experiences. The ranking also took into account the annual net cost of each school - the average cost of tuition for all students that applied for financial aid, after accounting for the amount of financial aid received - according to the US government's College Scorecard.(Read more about the methodology here.)

Business Insider expanded its scope to the top 100 schools and then filtered the ranking to highlight the best public institutions in the country - many of which provide an excellent education at a very low net cost.

The University of Virginia topped the list, earning a top 10 spot on the main ranking as well. University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and University of California at Berkeley rounded out the top three.

Read on to check out the full list of the 14 best public colleges in America.