When looking for a ranking of the top colleges in America, many parents, students and alumni have relied mainly on one source for the past three decades: U.S. News and World Report.

Now, college ranking is all the rage. There are numbered lists for every taste, each with a unique data-crunching formula. While U.S. News’ rankings measure prestige — long a matter of debate, with little variation among the top schools from year to year — new ranking schemes seek to define which schools offer the best outcomes for students, the best value, the best student experience. The proliferation of rankings could shake up higher education, influencing not just how consumers view the market but also how colleges position themselves in the competition for students and faculty.

The latest entrant is from the Wall Street Journal and Times Higher Education of London, which this fall proclaimed Stanford University the No. 1 school in the U.S. The new twist in this list is its use of results from an online survey of students that attempts to measure engagement with professors and satisfaction with the school. It also considers alumni salaries, graduation rates and other factors. The effort’s leaders say they are offering an alternative to a U.S. News formula that they believe gives too much weight to reputation and selectivity.

“We just thought there was a very clear gap and an opportunity to do something better for the U.S. consumers,” said Phil Baty, editor of world university rankings for Times Higher Education.

Sometimes variations in formulas make little difference in the rankings they produce. Eight of the top 10 universities on the U.S. News list were also in the Journal/THE top 10. The other two were right behind.

Johns Hopkins University placed 10th in the U.S. News rankings and was 11th in the Journal/THE list. The University of Chicago was third in U.S. News and 13th under the new ranking.

Dartmouth College placed 11th in the U.S. News rankings and was 16th in the Journal/THE list.

The top 10 in both lists are extraordinarily wealthy, private and exclusive, enrolling fewer than 75,000 undergraduates in all. No matter what the metrics, money matters.

There are other lists. Forbes, Money and Kiplinger rank schools with an emphasis on value and outcomes. Washington Monthly ranks them on how much good they do for the public. Niche ranks on a variety of factors, including online feedback from students.

Here is the Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education’s Top 25 ranking:

1. Stanford

2. MIT

3. Columbia

4. University of Pennsylvania

5. Yale

6. Harvard

7. Duke

8. Princeton

9. Cornell

10. Caltech

11. (tie) Johns Hopkins

11. (tie)Washington University in St. Louis

13. (tie) University of Chicago

13. (tie) Northwestern

15. University of Southern California

16. Dartmouth

17. Emory

18. Rice

19. Carnegie Mellon

20. Brown

21. Vanderbilt

22. Williams

23. Amherst

24. University of Michigan

25. University of Notre Dame