<p>The Apr 2007 issue of Kiplinger's has an article about Best Values in Private Colleges. The methodology is based on quality or education and cost after need-based and non-need-based aid. At the top of the list for universities is
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Caltech.</p>
<p>I have no doubt that you all are aware of Caltech's quality. You may be surprised that Caltech graduates had an lower average debt than those of any other university listed, except Princeton. The issue also ranked liberal arts schools. Average debt of Caltech graduates was well below that of graduates of all the liberal arts colleges.</p>
<p>"Money" magazine always used to have Caltech at the top of its best value list... until they stopped compiling it a few years ago. So, not surprising to me! The financial aid is excellent even though the sticker price itself is lower than peer institutions.</p>
<p>I wonder if this ranking takes into account the new health insurance costs on students or if the rankings only look at the graduates so it will take a few years to see the impact of the extra ~2,000 dollars a year.</p>
<p>Generally rankings like that are a combination of the total cost of a university and the debt levels of the graduates. A new change in expenses would affect the former but not the latter immediately, so you can expect the health insurance charge to be factored in more and more--however, so many other schools also have huge hikes in fees each year I'm not sure it will have any effect.</p>
<p>The report says the 2006-2007 cost of attending Caltech is $41,595. That appears to be tuition, room, board, extra meal allowance, books, plus student fees for sophomores, juniors and seniors, i.e. it does not include the mandatory health insurance fee for this year's freshman and all subsequent classes.</p>
<p>Bookworm, posting the article would likely be a copyright violation. Your local library may carry the magazine, though. </p>
<p>The article isn't particularly informative. It discusses the ranking methodology and gives examples from various colleges - a typical article for any ratings report.</p>
<p>Nope. Every year there are about 60 upperclass merit scholarships given out, which range from 3/4-tuition to full tuition, room, board, and fees.</p>
<p>The other issue is that many scholarships aren't merit per se (but are probably counted that way in the Kiplinger tally), but rather for diversity purposes. This is the "Caltech approach" to affirmative action (because they don't soften admissions standards).</p>
<p>I suspect that's how we get from 60 Upperclass Merit Awards plus a handful of Axlines all the way up to 20% of the student body.</p>
<p>The 20% is 20% of the students with out financial need. Not 20% of the student body. From their methodology notes: "Non-need based aid is the percentage of all undergraduates without need who received non-need-based aid." I did not realize that Caltech gave out so many upperclass merit scholarships. Caltech just keeps sounding better and better.</p>
<p>According to admssion folks I talked to and as has been validated by Ben et al traditionally they offer about 10% admits Academic scholarships. Remember with yield the absolute number who are on one is going to be less than the offered number. What is kind of cool about Caltech is the opportunity for about 10% of the class to get upper division scholarhsips. I think to reward kids for there efforts at suhc a demaning school is fantastic and I wish more places did that.</p>
<p>I agree, I definitely think Upperclass Merit Awards are a wonderful thing. It does sort of make up for the "randomness" of awarding 4-year full rides based on high school (since Caltech is so different from any high school). I have a number of friends who were able to benefit.</p>
<p>When we visited campus last summer, the admissions officer made a big point of telling us how the average student debt at graduation was in the $5K range. That certainly got our attention! </p>
<p>She told us that the admissions office had some summer interns use FASTWEB and apply for scholarships as a means of assessing the site's usefulness, and the two interns wound up with nearly all four years paid for. Given that I've since read lots of CC threads on how futile Fastweb scholarship chances seem to be, I now find this particularly interesting!</p>
<p>Upperclass Merit Awards are wonderful not only because the money invloved but also the process itself is instrumental for unique student/faculty interactions. You need to present your case in the application and you need to find faculty to support you. Also applications are evaluated by a institute wide faculty committee. As a result faculty at Caltech seems to know fairly significant percent of their undergraduate students quite well. This can only happen at Caltech.</p>