Exterior view of Oberlin Conservatory of Music and pond

Forbes ranks Oberlin College as the best in Ohio and No. 50 in the nation, praising the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, above.

(Courtesy of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music)

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Let's hear it for the ol' mikado yellow and cardinal red.

Those are the school colors for Oberlin College, which at No. 50 is the highest-ranking Ohio school on Forbes' list of top colleges in America. At No. 3 in the state is Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, ranked No. 89 overall. Forbes' list includes 650 schools.



Oberlin is a private liberal-arts school that has 2,959 undergraduate students with a total annual cost of $59,683, including tuition and housing. Forbes gives the school a grade of A-plus, citing its Conservatory of Music, which is the oldest in continuous operation in the country. It also notes the school has a 64-bit supercomputer, the first at any four-year liberal-arts school in the country.

Oberlin is also lauded for purchasing about 40 percent of its total food budget locally.

Case Western Reserve University, foreground, is ranked No. 3 in the state and No. 89 overall by Forbes.

Case scores an A from Forbes. It has 4,016 undergraduate students and 9,636 students overall, and the total annual cost is $59,026. From the Forbes summary:

Rounding out the top five Ohio schools are Kenyon College in Gambier at No. 69; Case Western Reserve at No. 89; Denison University in Granville at No. 130; and Ohio State University in Columbus at No. 138.

John Carroll University in University Heights is ranked No. 9 in Ohio and No. 219 overall. Other Northeast Ohio schools of note: Hiram College (No. 18 in the state, No. 379 overall); Baldwin-Wallace in Berea (21, 457); University of Akron (24, 585); Kent State (26, 605); Cleveland State (27, 612); and Youngstown State (30, 638).

Cleveland State ranks No. 27 in Ohio and No. 612 overall on Forbes' list.

Forbes does not list a grade for Cleveland State, which has 11,522 undergraduate students and 17,229 students overall. Its total annual cost is $28,058. Here's what Forbes has to say about CSU:

Stanford University in California is ranked No. 1 overall on the Forbes list. The private school has nearly 20,000 students and a total annual cost of $58,846. On Stanford, Forbes notes:

After Stanford, the top 10 schools are Pomona College in Claremont, Calif.; Princeton University in New Jersey; Yale University in New Haven, Conn.; Columbia University in New York; Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pa.; West Point in West Point, N.Y.; Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.; Williams College in Williamstown, Mass.; and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.

Forbes partnered with the Center for College Affordability and Productivity in forming its list. Go here for a more extensive explanation of its methodology.