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U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, COLO. -- Forbes Magazine has ranked the Air Force Academy number 11 in the nation on its 2010 America's Best Colleges List.

The rankings are compiled by Forbes and the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, which evaluated more than 600 undergraduate programs.

According to Forbes, the rankings are based on several weighted factors which include: graduate surveys, average salaries of graduates, student evaluations of classes, number of alumni listed as corporate officers on Forbes listing, number of alumni listed in 'Who's Who in America,' amount of student debt at graduation, freshman-to-sophomore retention rates, and the percentage of students who graduate in four years.

These rankings put service academies in the same tier as Ivy League colleges. The Air Force Academy placed at  number 16 in 2008,  number 7 in 2009 and number 11 this year.  For the 2010 rankings, the United States Military Academy (West Point) ranked number 4 on the list, while the U.S. Naval Academy came in at number 29, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy ranked number 105 and the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy earned the number 165 ranking. 

Last week’s Forbes ranking follows the national education rankings by The Princeton Review.  In the Princeton Review’s The Best 373 Colleges text, released Aug. 2, the Air Force Academy ranks number 1 in the nation in professor availability.   The Princeton Review ranked the Air Force Academy number one in professor availability in its 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 Best Colleges editions.

At the U.S. Air Force Academy, the student-faculty ratio is 9:1, average class size is 20, 100 percent of the faculty is full-time and zero classes are taught by teaching assistants.