Baruch College ranked No. 64 in the 2021 Forbes Top College List, becoming the list’s highest ranking CUNY,

This is Forbes’ first list since 2019 since it skipped last year to reconsider how schools are assessed after the pandemic heavily affected higher-learning institutions.

Baruch gained 110 spots from Forbes’ 2019 list.

“Baruch College…takes advantage of its location in Midtown Manhattan to build on its strength in business and innovation,” Baruch’s ranking page on Forbes reads. “Top employers of Baruch Graduates are banks like JP Morgan and PricewaterhouseCoopers.”

From the list, Baruch also ranked as the No. 24 best public school  and No. 3 New York public college. It was also ranked No. 8 among New York private and public colleges.

In a separate list, Forbes’ Top Colleges For Your Money, Baruch ranked No. 7, ahead of Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“Baruch College is an exemplar among institutions that make highly competitive academic programs accessible to a diverse, under-represented student population in the system of higher education, while preparing them for both personal and career success,” President S. David Wu said in a news release. “It is encouraging to see Forbes recalibrate its national rankings to better reflect—and recognize—the transformative impact of such institutions.”

Rankings were based on alumni salary, graduating debt, graduation rate, time needed to repay debt and retention rate.

Alumni success included obtaining doctorate degrees, prestigious scholarships, awards and fellowships. Being featured in other Forbes lists was also a factor.

Rankings mainly relied on graduates’ salaries from PayScale, a Seattle-based company that collects self-reported income data.

To determine the rankings, Forbes also partnered with higher education consultant Michael Itzkowitz.

He designed the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard during the Barack Obama administration to accessibly compare metrics like costs, admission rates and acceptance rates when applying for college.

Following Baruch, the second-best ranked CUNY was Hunter College at No. 129.

Other CUNYs ranked in the top 200 were City College of New York at No. 140, Queens College at No. 143 and Brooklyn College at No. 181.

Lehman College ranked No. 349, John Jay at No. 373 and College of Staten Island at No. 506. “We take great pride in CUNY’s role in helping generations of New Yorkers, regardless of means or background, to succeed and fulfill the American Dream,” Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez said. “These rankings are yet another affirmation of CUNY’s singular quality and affordability and its extraordinary power as an engine of social mobility.”

The top five  schools were University of California, Berkeley, Yale University, Princeton University, Stanford University and Columbia University. It was the first time a public institution topped Forbes’ list.