Best Value Colleges Lists for 2010 — Kiplinger vs. The Princeton Review January 22, 2010
Paul Partridge on the Best Value Colleges for 2010
It’s that time of year when “best value” college lists surface. But with different lists circulating around, how do they differ, and which is the best one? Let’s take a peak at two of the more popular lists to see how they are created and how they can work for you…
First up is the Kiplinger list. This list is based on information from 500 public 4- year universities with broad-based curricula. The top 100 value colleges are then chosen based on academics, cost and financial aid. Academics are based on factors such as S.A.T. scores, admission and retention rates, graduation rates and student-to-faculty ratio. The costs and financial aid are based on tuition, mandatory fees, books and room and board and percentage of students need met by aid, and debt per student upon graduation. The report shows 27 categories including admissions rate and average financial aid, and can be found at http://www.kiplinger.com/tools/colleges/. The three schools receiving top honors: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Florida and University of Virginia.
Next is the Princeton Review list. This list is based on information from 700 public and private institutions. Their top 100 value colleges are chosen much like the Kiplinger list, by academics, cost and financial aid but Princeton uses over 30 factors in these 3 areas. This list accentuates financial aid availability more than Kiplinger. The information for the Princeton Review is organized differently. It lists the top 10 public and top 10 private institutions and then lists the remained in alphabetical order. It also gives write ups about facts about the school, bang for your buck and bottom line information, along with an easy-to-read chart. Take a look at: http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/best-valuecolleges.htm
Two schools receiving top honors for public institutions, University of Virginia and City University of New York and for private institutions, Swarthmore College and Harvard College. Apparently, Harvard makes the grade because it’s generous with college financial aid.
