The 50 best colleges in America

Mike Nudelman/Business Insider

When it comes to assessing the value of a college, the most important factor to consider is how much that school helps students succeed in life.

For our seventh annual ranking of the best colleges in America, we asked over 1,000 Business Insider readers to choose the colleges that best prepare their students for success after graduation.

We then combined those results with each school's average SAT score from the college-data website College Board and the median starting salary from the employer-information website PayScale to come up with the final ranking. You can read the full methodology here.

This year, Massachusetts Institute of Technology tops our list after a brief hiatus from the No. 1 spot. Stanford, last year's top school, slips to No. 2; Harvard, Princeton, and CalTech round out the top five.

Did your school make the cut this year? Read on to find out.

Find out how your salary stacks up on PayScale.