Pitt, CMU dubbed ‘new Ivies’ by Forbes

Move over, Harvard.

Both the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon have been dubbed “new Ivies” by Forbes Magazine.

The Pittsburgh institutions were among 20 schools — 10 public, 10 private — to earn the 2025 designation. The list specifically looks at which schools are graduating the “best and brightest” students who often outrank their Ivy League counterparts in the eyes of employers.

Other universities on the list include the University of Michigan, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Notre Dame.

“While many employers have soured on what they consider entitled Ivy League graduates, they are increasingly willing to consider graduates of non-Ivy private colleges and public universities,” the Forbes article reads.

Forbes formed its list by narrowing down universities based on their enrollments, admission rates and test scores. To qualify, public institutions needed to enroll at least 4,000 students and admit less than 50% of applicants, while private institutions had to enroll at least 3,500 students and accept less than 20% of their applicants.

Qualifying universities were then subject to employer feedback in a Forbes survey.

Pitt, with an undergraduate enrollment of more than 25,300, has a 50% admission rate. Its median SAT score is 1360 and its median ACT score is 31.

CMU, meanwhile, has an 11% acceptance rate, a median SAT score of 1540 and a median ACT score of 35. The elite institution enrolls nearly 7,500 undergraduate students.

Both Pitt and CMU also have been named top employers by Forbes in recent years.

Forbes’ “new Ivies” designation comes as many Americans are increasingly skeptical of the traditional eight Ivy League schools: the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, Harvard, Brown, Cornell, Princeton, Yale and Dartmouth College.

In a recent Forbes survey, 37% of employers said they were less likely to hire an Ivy League graduate than they were five years ago, and 12% said they would never hire an Ivy League alumnus. Respondents cited these graduates’ attitudes and “lack of humility” as key issues, Forbes reported.

The Ivies also have faced mounting criticism from the Trump administration. In the two months since he took office, President Donald Trump has threatened the funding of Penn, Columbia and Harvard over these schools’ handling of issues like the Israel-Hamas War and transgender athletes.

Pitt and CMU also haven’t been immune from potential funding cuts — though so far less pronounced than what the Ivies have faced.

Pitt stands to lose $183 million in federal funding every year if cuts to National Institutes of Health research grants are implemented. In March, the Oakland school implemented a hiring freeze until at least June, in part because of the federal landscape.

And CMU could lose $8.5 million annually if NIH cuts come to fruition.

The university also has been subject to federal investigations for its high enrollment of Chinese international students and what the White House sees as race-exclusionary practices.