According to the experts at U.S. News & World Report, Rice University is once again the best college in Texas, and one of the best in the nation.

Houston's premier private university has been ranked No. 17 among national universities for the eighth year in a row, tying with Vanderbilt and coming in just behind ivies Brown and Cornell. Rice was also ranked No. 16 for Best Value and the graduate programs in business and engineering were listed as "best" programs.

Topping the U.S. News list in a tie were perennial favorites Harvard and Princeton, followed by Yale. The rankings are based on a matrix of traditional factors — the applicant acceptance rate, freshman retention rate, six-year graduation rate, the percentage of classes with under 20 students and SAT scores for the 25th and 75th percentile of incoming students.

Other schools in Texas were also rated well. The University of Texas came in at No. 45 on the national universities list, the same position it earned in 2010, tying with Penn State, University of California-Irvine, University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign and Yeshiva University in New York. UT was 13th overall among public universities and was ranked in the top 10 for its undergraduate business and engineering programs.

Texas A&M moved up in 2011, rising to No. 58 among national universities from No. 63 in 2010, enough improvement to now be listed among the top 20 public universities nationwide, at No. 19. Other nationally ranked Texas schools include Southern Methodist University (No. 62, a four-spot fall from 2010), Baylor University (No. 75, up four places), Texas Christian University (No. 97), University of Texas-Dallas (No. 136), and Texas Tech University (No. 160).

Despite a big boost from the Carnegie Foundation and a first-time appearance in The Princeton Review's guide to colleges, the University of Houston failed to meet the U.S. News criteria for a top- or second-tier university, remaining unranked. One area in which UH received high marks was for its entrepreneurship program in the undergraduate school of business, ranking No. 21.