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AIR FORCE ACADEMY, COLO. -- The Air Force Academy is ranked as one of the top 10 universities in the nation for the second time this week, with the latest rankings coming from Forbes.

Forbes released its annual best colleges rankings late Wednesday, ranking the Air Force Academy as the 10th best university in the nation.  The top-ranked university is Williams College in Massachusetts, followed next by Princeton, then the U.S. Military Academy, Amherst, Stanford, Harvard, Haverford College, the University of Chicago, and MIT.

The Air Force Academy came in at number 10 in the best colleges rankings this year, up one slot from number 11 in Forbes’ 2010 rankings. 

Following the Air Force Academy to round out the top 20 colleges on the Forbes list are Northwestern, Notre Dame, Wellesley, Brown, Colby, Duke, Rice, Dartmouth, Boston College and the U.S. Naval Academy.

Forbes also ranked the colleges by region. The Air Force Academy was ranked as the second-best university in the west, behind Stanford.

The rankings are calculated by Forbes and the Center for College Affordability and Productivity and are based on a numerical formula which assesses each school in the following categories: post-graduate success, student satisfaction, student debt, four-year graduation rates and competitive awards.

This is the second set of colleges rankings released this week which includes the Air Force Academy among its top 10 rankings. On Tuesday, The Princeton Review released the rankings from its latest Best 376 Colleges, 2012 edition book, which examines a broad range of academic, athletic, social and societal categories. 

The Princeton Review ranked the Academy faculty fifth in the nation in their "Most Accessible Professors" category and ranked the Academy's administration as number nine in the nation in their "School Runs Like Butter” category.

A third set of rankings from the U.S. News and World Report is set to come out later this month.