The Princeton Review® has announced the 2019 edition of The Best Value Colleges: 200 Schools with Exceptional ROI for Your Tuition Investment. It is published by Penguin Random House/Princeton Review Books and is worth $22.99.
The ranking lists are also available on the website at https://www.princetonreview.com/college-rankings/best-value-colleges. The Princeton Review chose the 200 schools based on a comprehensive analysis of data from its surveys of administrators at more than 650 colleges in 2017–18. Survey topics broadly covered academics, cost, financial aid, career services, graduation rates, student debt, and alumni support.
“Only 7 per cent of the nation’s four-year colleges made it into this book,” noted Robert Franek, its lead author and The Princeton Review’s Editor-in-Chief. “We salute them for their stellar academics and generous aid awards to students based on need and/or merit. They also provide their undergrads with career services from day one plus strong networks of alumni connections.”
The Best Value Colleges has profiles of the 200 featured schools, plus profiles of nine tuition-free colleges and a section recommending “Great Schools for the Highest Paying Majors” (48 majors are featured).
The following are the highlights of the report:
- On the book’s main ranking list, “Top 50 Best Value Colleges,” California Institute of Technology took the #1 spot. Johns Hopkins University (MD) was #50.
- The book’s six additional ranking lists each feature 25 schools. The list categories and #1 and #25 schools on them are:
- “Best Financial Aid”—#1 Bowdoin College (ME)/#25 Dartmouth College (NH)
- “Best Career Placement”—#1 Harvey Mudd College (CA)/#25 The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (NY)
- “Best Alumni Network”—#1 Pennsylvania State University/#25 Wofford College (SC)
- “Best Schools for Internships”—#1 Bentley University (MA)/#25 Pennsylvania State University
- “Best Schools for Making an Impact”—#1 Wesleyan University (CT)/#25 Creighton University (NE)
- “Top 25 Best Value Colleges for Students with No Demonstrated Need”—#1 Georgia Institute of Technology/#25 Cornell University (NY)
- Note: The 200 schools are not ranked hierarchically from 1 to 200.
- Exceptional Facts About the Schools in The Best Value Colleges 2019 Edition
- Among the 200 colleges (137 private and 63 public) in the book:
- The average grant to students with need is $28,735
- The median starting salary of graduates is $59,531 and mid-career salary is $115,123.
