Money’s Best Colleges By Value Ranking Topped By 3 Public Universities

ACROSS AMERICA— Prospective college students and their parents looking for affordability and high quality have a new tool and resource to help narrow down their choices: Money’s new “Best Colleges in America, Ranked by Value” report.

Topped by three public universities — the University of Michigan, the University of North Carolina and the University of Virginia — the list includes 671 schools that met Money’s criteria.

The university Ann Arbor, Michigan, will cost about $32, 400 to attend in the 2022-23 school year without financial aid, but graduates can expect to earn about $75,840 early in their careers, Money said. Cost and earnings after graduation are just two of the measures Money and its data partner used to come up with the list. Also according to Money:

The North Carolina university in Chapel Hill costs less — about $25,200 for 2022-23 — but graduates also can expect to earn less — $61,920— in the beginning years of their working careers.

The No. 3 school, the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, costs the most of the three — about $36,700 for 2022-23 — but graduates can expect to earn around $77,050 in the early years of their careers.

The full methodology is found on Money’s website, but in short it includes financially sound schools with enrollments of 500 or more students and graduation rates at or above the mean for the category of institution.

The data was sorted in three categories: quality of education; affordability, including the availability of grants and other financial aid; and outcomes, a category that takes a comprehensive look at earnings after graduation, graduates’ economic mobility and a new measure on return on investment using data from the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Money also has a tool that students and parents can use to further narrow down their search and build a customized list that uses its high-value college rankings to create a grouping that best matches a student’s interests. The list can be re-ranked, based on the importance of financial aid and post-graduate earnings, Money said.

Nationally, the Top 10 schools based on value are:

1. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
2. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
3. University of Virginia, Charlottesville
4. Massachusetts Maritime Academy, Buzzards Bay
5. Virginia Military Institute, Lexington
6. Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta
7. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
8. University of Florida, Gainesville
9. University of California, Irvine
10. University of California, Davis