MONEY's Best Colleges

[NDdomer2]

https://best-colleges.time.com/money/full-ranking#/list

Here's a quick look at how MONEY determined which of the country's roughly 1,500 four-year colleges and universities deliver the most value—that is, a great education, at an affordable price, that helps students launch promising careers.

Initial cut. MONEY screened out schools with graduation rates below the median and those facing financial difficulties.
Ranking factors. The remaining colleges were ranked on 21 factors in three equally weighted categories: educational quality, affordability, and alumni earnings.
Special value measure. Included: a "value added" grade that considered how well students at each school did vs. what would be expected given their economic and academic backgrounds and the institution's mix of majors.
Focus on affordability. Among the factors considered: merit aid, parent and student borrowing, the length of time to graduate, tuition increases, and other measures.

Notables:
#1 - Stanford
#9 - Cal Berk
#15 - BYU
#17 - UVA
#18 - scUM
#20 - aTm
#21 - Duke
#24 - Vandy
#26 - UCLA
#30 - UF
#30 - GaTech
#44 - ND

 

[woolybug25]

Wtf? That is a terribly inaccurate list. Looks like ND got dinged because it's expensive?

 

[IrishLax]

Make's all the sense in the world to focus on affordability, but clear there is some disconnect between how Businessweek mathematically calculated return on investment, and how they weighted affordability.

Good to my safety school is 27 spots "better" than ND, and my safetiest safety school is 14 spots "better."

EDIT: OK I now see that one of their categories is "merit aid"... which ND famously doesn't do*, but those columns are locked sooo...

*They sorta do, but only in very rare cases.

 

[NDdomer2]

Wtf? That is a terribly inaccurate list. Looks like ND got dinged because it's expensive?

I thought the same but most of the private schools above ND are equally expensive.

 

[IrishLax]

Looking at this more, I like what they're doing. There is a premium option to "create your own ranking" where you can assign weight to the categories that are important to you... i.e. post-grad earning, affordability, etc. You can also filter out public/private, etc.

But yeah, their "default" list seems to put emphasis on columns you can't see so the cost/payout/grad rate doesn't isn't reflected in the rankings how you'd expect because of these categories you can't see.

Also, BYU only costs $80,000 because the Mormon students that go their have their tuition subsidized by the tithing their families do... which if factored in, probably brings them in line with most state schools.

TLDR version: you can't put "affordability" in a box because everyone is going to have a unique financial situation and receive different aid/tuition rates depending on factors, so this whole index falls flat on its face under scrutiny.

 

[IrishLax]

Another interesting thing... ND actually gets punished hard in these rankings for having a bunch of smart, two-parent wealthy white kids. They put a huge weight on "a "value added" grade that considered how well students at each school did vs. what would be expected given their economic and academic backgrounds and the institution's mix of majors."

When you get further into the methodology, it explicitly awards points for:
-Having low income students receiving Pell grants.
-Having students with worse test scores that outperform their "norm" and graduate and get a decent job.
-Having poor people that can go their for cheap and don't default on their student loans.
-Coming from a poor family and getting a good career post graduation instead of coming from a rich family.

It also strongly emphasizes initial earnings and puts almost no weight on mid- and late-career earnings.

Maybe the funniest thing is that 3% of each school's score is simply what "skills" people list on their LinkedIn profile. As someone who hasn't updated their profile in years, I apologize for hurting our score.

You can use their tools to change the weights and factors for these criteria, and I bet it makes drastic changes up and down for a lot of schools.

This is hardly the worst ranking system ever created and it's actually a really useful tool if used correctly to help someone pick a college.

 

[ACamp1900]

Does Stanford have THAT much more of a 'poor and oppressed' population than Notre Dame though??

 

[NDdomer2]

Another interesting thing... ND actually gets punished hard in these rankings for having a bunch of smart, two-parent wealthy white kids. They put a huge weight on "a "value added" grade that considered how well students at each school did vs. what would be expected given their economic and academic backgrounds and the institution's mix of majors."

When you get further into the methodology, it explicitly awards points for:
-Having low income students receiving Pell grants.
-Having students with worse test scores that outperform their "norm" and graduate and get a decent job.
-Having poor people that can go their for cheap and don't default on their student loans.
-Coming from a poor family and getting a good career post graduation instead of coming from a rich family.

It also strongly emphasizes initial earnings and puts almost no weight on mid- and late-career earnings.

Maybe the funniest thing is that 3% of each school's score is simply what "skills" people list on their LinkedIn profile. As someone who hasn't updated their profile in years, I apologize for hurting our score.

You can use their tools to change the weights and factors for these criteria, and I bet it makes drastic changes up and down for a lot of schools.

This is hardly the worst ranking system ever created and it's actually a really useful tool if used correctly to help someone pick a college.

Maybe I am wrong here but don't a lot of the MIT's, Harvards, etc have the same bunch of smart, two-parent wealthy white kids?

I agree this listing is skewed weird. I think the initial "early career" earnings is the most bizarre factor to me.

 

[NDdomer2]

Does Stanford have THAT much more of a 'poor and oppressed' population than Notre Dame though??

They certainly don't buy tickets to the games BAHAHA

 

[wizards8507]

EDIT: OK I now see that one of their categories is "merit aid"... which ND famously doesn't do*, but those columns are locked sooo...

*They sorta do, but only in very rare cases.

Aren't most elite universities need-based only? The logic being that you have to be "that good" just to get accepted in the first place.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 4 using Tapatalk.

 

[IrishLax]

Does Stanford have THAT much more of a 'poor and oppressed' population than Notre Dame though??

Maybe I am wrong here but don't a lot of the MIT's, Harvards, etc have the same bunch of smart, two-parent wealthy white kids?

I agree this listing is skewed weird. I think the initial "early career" earnings is the most bizarre factor to me.

Surprisingly, no. Stanford - for undergrad - has a metric ton of international student/minorities/poor/etc. ... they put a huge emphasis on diversity, and it works. The majority of people there have very unique life experiences. There's actually a joke about one-legged Native American cello prodigies or something but I forget it right now.

Harvard, etc. have a much larger concentration of loaded white kids but they are probably a bit more diverse (guessing) but more importantly check the boxes much better than ND does...

-Having low income students receiving Pell grants.
-Having students with worse test scores that outperform their "norm" and graduate and get a decent job.
-Having poor people that can go their for cheap and don't default on their student loans.
-Coming from a poor family and getting a good career post graduation instead of coming from a rich family.

Even if they lack in quantity for #1, they absolutely crush #2/#3/#4. So they do well by the metrics. They rather famously let pretty much every middle class or below kid that can get in go there for free. I forget the exact cutcoff but I think it's something like household income of $80-$100k pays no tuition at Harvard.

 

[GoIrish41]

Surprisingly, no. Stanford - for undergrad - has a metric ton of international student/minorities/poor/etc. ... they put a huge emphasis on diversity, and it works. The majority of people there have very unique life experiences. There's actually a joke about one-legged Native American cello prodigies or something but I forget it right now.

Harvard, etc. have a much larger concentration of loaded white kids but they are probably a bit more diverse (guessing) but more importantly check the boxes much better than ND does...


Even if they lack in quantity for #1, they absolutely crush #2/#3/#4. So they do well by the metrics. They rather famously let pretty much every middle class or below kid that can get in go there for free. I forget the exact cutcoff but I think it's something like household income of $80-$100k pays no tuition at Harvard.

that is awesome. I did not know that.

 

[Buster Bluth]

#134 - Ohio State

 

[Fbolt]

#54 UMD-CP

Fear the Turtle!

 

[ACamp1900]

haha, how I know this list is bullshit... CSUSB, one of the worst schools anywhere is rated among the better schools in Cali...

 

[BobbyMac]

that is awesome. I did not know that.

And that's what the interest on a $32B endowment will buy you.

.

 

[NDPhilly]

#345: Fordham University

287 spots lower then our U.S. news spot. Dope

 

[woolybug25]

One thing that I would note, this isn't their list of the best colleges, it's their "list of the 736 schools that provide the best value for your tuition dollar".

There's a big difference between that and a static list of simply what schools are the best.

 

[Cackalacky]

114. The Citadel. I'll take it.

 

[tussin]

Even if they lack in quantity for #1, they absolutely crush #2/#3/#4. So they do well by the metrics. They rather famously let pretty much every middle class or below kid that can get in go there for free. I forget the exact cutcoff but I think it's something like household income of $80-$100k pays no tuition at Harvard.

Yes, this is the exact reason why Harvard has been pulling in some pretty great basketball recruiting classes under Tommy Amaker.

It's interesting that Bucknell is ranked top 40 in this list when it's one of the most expensive and least diverse schools in the country.