Best colleges list: Where do the Texas schools rank?

The annual U.S. News & World Report ranking of the best colleges in the country was released Tuesday, and the report card for Texas schools was a mixed bag.

The state’s biggest public universities each dropped a few spots -- UT fell from 52 in 2016 to 56 this year; Texas A&M dropped from 70 to 74; and Texas Tech tumbled from 168 to 176.

But private schools made some modest gains. Rice, the top-ranked Texas college, moved up to 15 from 18 last year; SMU rose from 61 to 56 (tied with UT); and Baylor inched up a spot to 71. TCU held steady at 82.

The popular list, which assesses 1,800 U.S. schools, again ranked Princeton as the No. 1 “national university.” Harvard was No. 2, followed by a tie between University of Chicago and Yale at No. 3 and another tie between Columbia and Stanford at No. 5.

The top-rated public universities were both in California: No. 1 was the University of California at Berkeley, followed by UCLA.

This story was originally published September 13, 2016 at 4:35 PM with the headline "Best colleges list: Where do the Texas schools rank?."