Aug 05, 2014 06:12 AM EDT By Staff Reporter, UniversityHerald Reporter

The Williams College has topped the Forbes' list of best liberal arts Colleges 2014. At present, the school has three academic curricular divisions - humanities, sciences and social sciences, 36 majors and two master's degree programs in art history and development economics.

The College also occupies the first place in the U.S. News & World Report's 2014 ranking of the 266 liberal arts colleges in the United States. Liberal arts colleges earn a rank in the list that "focuses on undergraduate education and award at least 50 percent of their degrees in fields such as English, economics or sociology," said U.S. News, Huffington Post reports.

Williams is followed by the Swarthmore College.

President Rebecca Chopp said that liberal arts education not just boosts economy, but also helps solve many of the world's problems. "What you have to do is to learn the tools of learning itself," said Chopp "The liberal arts are, in a very real sense, the gold standard for that type of approach," University Business reports.

At No. 3 is the Pomona College, where students have access to over 2200 courses each year including 230 English courses and 140 mathematics courses. Students take up one course in each of five years: Creative Expression, Social Institutions and Human Behavior, History, Values, Ethics and Cultural Studies, Physical and Biological Sciences and Mathematical Reasoning.

The College boasts of some famous alumni including Roy E. Disney, former NYT Executive Editor Bill Keller and singer Kris Kristofferson among others.

"Being small, we have very close relationships between faculty and students," President David Oxtoby said. "We have students involved in research from day one, we have small discussion-based classes, we have out-of-classroom opportunities," cbs local reports.

Top 10 Liberal Arts Colleges in United States

1. Williams College

2. Swarthmore College

3. Pomona College

4. United States Military Academy

5. Amherst College

6. Haverford College

7. Bowdoin College

8. Wesleyan University

9. Carleton College

10. Davidson College

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