Although publications such as the Princeton Review, Washington Monthly and Forbes issue annual rankings of American colleges and university, the rankings from U.S. News and World Report --- often called "the granddaddy" of college ranking reports --- is the only one to provide rankings specific to accounting colleges, with rankings given to both graduate and undergraduate programs. U.S. News and World Report ranks colleges based on two specific areas: weighing opinions from academic experts on the quality of a school's programs and analyzing statistics used to measure quality in terms of a school's students, faculty and research.
In its 2011 rankings, U.S. News' top undergraduate accounting schools (in descending order) are: University of Texas---Austin, University of Illinois---Urbana-Champaign, Brigham Young University---Provo, University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan---Ann Arbor, University of Southern California, Indiana University---Bloomington, University of Notre Dame, New York University and University of North Carolina---Chapel Hill. Rankings include information on enrollment figures, costs for both in-state ad out-of-state tuition and a variety of statistics in areas ranging from class size to student-faculty ratio.
The rankings varied for U.S. News and World Report's 2011 rankings of accounting schools for graduate students, a subsection of the rankings for best business school. The top 10 choices, in descending order, for accounting graduate schools are: University of Texas---Austin (McCombs), University of Pennsylvania (Wharton), University of Chicago (Booth), University of Illinois---Urbana-Champaign, University of Michigan---Ann Arbor (Ross), University of Southern California (Marshall), Stanford University, New York University (Stern), Brigham Young University (Marriott), Indiana University---Bloomington (Kelley) and University of North Carolina---Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler), which tied for 10th place.
Ranking in first place for both undergraduate and postgraduate studies of accounting in the U.S. News' 2010 ranking, the University of Texas---Austin was founded in 1883 and remains a public university. Total undergraduate enrollment (as of 2010) is just over 38,000, and the campus sits on 350 acres in Austin. Ranked 45th overall in U.S. News' 2011 edition of Best Colleges, in-state tuition and fees are for University of Texas are $9,418 for the 2010-11 academic year, while out-of-state tuition and fees are substantially higher at $31,218.