Which colleges offer students the best bang for their (ahem) parents' bucks? The Princeton Review says the nation's "best value" private college is Brigham Young University (Provo, Utah), while New College of Florida (Sarasota, Fla.) is the "best value" public college.
The schools hold No. 1 spots on The Princeton Review's ranking lists of top 10 private/top 10 public "best value" colleges in its book, "America's Best Value Colleges: 2007 Edition" (Random House/Princeton Review, $18.95). Published Tuesday, the book profiles 150 schools the New York-based education services company names as the best deals in undergraduate education this year.
The Princeton Review selected the schools for the book from a field of 646 colleges it considers academically excellent. In determining which were the "best values," it took into account institutional data from the schools and its surveys of students attending them. Said Robert Franek, Princeton Review VP of publishing, "We considered more than 30 factors to rate the colleges in four areas: academics, tuition GPA (sticker price minus average amount students receive in scholarships and grants), financial aid (how well the colleges meet students' financial need), and student borrowing."
In rank order, the book's "Top 10 Best Value Private Colleges" are: 1) Brigham Young University (Provo, Utah); 2) Berea College (Berea, Ky.); 3) Roberts Wesleyan College (Rochester, N.Y.); 4) Westminster College (Fulton, Mo.); 5) Rice University (Houston); 6) Wabash College (Crawfordsville, Ind.); 7) Hillsdale College (Hillsdale, Mich.); 8) The University of the South (Sewanee, Tenn.); 9) Swarthmore College (Swarthmore, Pa.); and 10) Earlham College (Richmond, Ind).
The "Top 10 Best Value Public Colleges" are: 1) New College of Florida (Sarasota, Fla.); 2) North Carolina State University (Raleigh, N.C.); 3) California State University (Long Beach, Calif.); 4) Truman State University (Kirksville, Mo.); 5) University of North Florida (Jacksonville, Fla.); 6) University of North Carolina (Asheville, N.C.); 7) University of Virginia (Charlottesville, Va.); 8) Texas A&M University (College Station, Texas); 9) University of California (Berkeley, Calif.); and 10) University of Oklahoma (Norman, Okla.).
The Princeton Review posted a list of the schools in "America's Best Value Colleges" on its site http://www.princetonreview.com/ at which users can also search its other college ranking lists and survey reports. The company surveys 110,000 college students whose ratings of their schools determine its college rankings in 60 categories in its "Best Colleges" book published each August. Its "College Hopes Survey" of about 5,000 college applicants and parents names their "Top 10 Dream Colleges" each March.
