- Thomas Aquinas
- UNC--Chapel Hill
- Swarthmore
- Yale
- Princeton
- Washington & Lee
- Davidson
- Duke
- Haverford
- MIT
- Hamilton
- Harvard
- Amherst
- Pomona
- Middlebury
- Wesleyan
- Vassar
- Bowdoin
- Caltech
- Carleton
Average graduating debt you would think is a great metric but if they admit only rich students then guess what there average graduating debt is…zero. This is mixing a lot of different metrics (and it’s not explained exactly how) to come up with a strange list. Thomas Aquila’s comes out on top but has the lowest 10 yr salary, I’m betting a California community college has better numbers. Rankings should be more uniform in what they are trying to measure.
$31k/yr at a school USNews ranks 126th among one region’s Regional Universities is the best blend of academic quality and affordability? This just seems weird.
Harvard meets all financial need and has lower average student debt. So it’s worse academically?
We’ve had this conversation. It’s fine to have a big, generous FA program, but, the proof is in the pudding, and as recently as 2017, HYP were sort of in the middle of the pack as far as recruitment and retention of Pell grant recipients (using that as a surrogate marker for low-income students.) Maybe, they’re doing better now, in a post-2016 world, but, I can certainly understand brownie points being given to a small, under-endowed, but, well-regarded, Catholic college that manages to attract Pell grant recipients among a quarter of its student body.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2017/10/23/pell-grant-shares-at-top-ranked-colleges-a-sortable-chart/
@circuitrider Then this ranking should be labeled best schools for pell grant students, not best value schools. Are they a great value for middle class applicants? It doesn’t appear so.
In the end, affordabilty comes down to YOUR net price. If your family income is below a certain point and you aren’t a North Carolina resident, then chances are, Harvard will offer a lower net price than UNC-CH (assuming you can get into either one). A ranking like Kiplinger’s may help steer you to a good first-pass list of candidates; it does have some nice metrics and sorting capabilities. However, to use it effectively, you’d want to analyze whether (for your own family circumstances) you need to prioritize sticker price, need-based aid, or merit grants. For each answer, you’ll likely get very different affordability rankings.
Thomas Aquinas College places 43rd in a national category.
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges
These colleges generally represent excellent values for middle-income families. Consider a case example (data from IPEDS):