Best Value Colleges

The Princeton Review (registration required) has published a list of the best value colleges in the US.



Here is what they say about their methodology:

"We chose the schools that appear on our Top Ten Best Value Public and Private Colleges ranking lists based on institutional data we collected from more than 650 schools during the 2005-2006 academic year and our surveys of students attending them. Broadly speaking, the factors we weighed covered undergraduate academics, costs, and financial aid.

More specifically, academic factors included the quality of students the schools attracted, as measured by admissions credentials, as well as how students rated their academic experiences. Cost considerations were tuition, room and board, and required fees.

Financial aid factors included the average gift aid (grants, scholarships, or free money) awarded to students, the average percentage of financial need met for students who demonstrated need, the percentage of students with financial need whose need was fully met by the school, the percentage of graduating students who took out loans to pay for school, and the average debt of those students. We also took into consideration how satisfied students were with the financial aid packages they received."



There are a few questions that should be asked about the methodology, especially concerning the student surveys, but this approach may be more useful for undergraduate students than that of the THES-QS and Shanghai Jiao Tong rankings.

The top 10 best value private colleges for undergraduates are:

1. Rice University
2. Williams College
3. Grinell College
4. Swarthmore College
5. Thomas Aquinas college
6. Wabash College
7. Whitman College
8. Amherst College
9. Scripps College
10. Harvard College


The top 10 best value public colleges are:

1. New College of Florida
2. Truman State University
3. University of North Carolina at Asheville
4. University of Virginia
5. University of California at Berkeley
6. University of California at San Diego
7. University of California at Santa Cruz
8. University of Minnesota, NMorris
9. University of Wisconson-Madison
10. St. Mary's College of Maryland