18 August 2018
The online magazine, MONEY, has published the latest edition of its Best Colleges rankings. These are orientated towards the student as consumer and rate quality of education, affordability and outcomes, each of which is given a one third weighting. Quality of education is measured by six-year graduation rate, value-added graduation rate, peer quality, instructor quality, financial stability, and the outcomes of students receiving Pell Grants.
Affordability is measured by the net cost of a degree, debt and risk of defaulting on student loans, including adjustments for academic and social factors, and affordability for low-income students.
Outcomes comprise graduate earnings, including an adjustment for majors, College Scorecard ten-year earnings, value-added earnings, employment outcomes, job meaning, and socio-economic mobility.
California does very well in these rankings taking four of the top five, five of the top ten, and seven of the top twenty places.
Overall the top five colleges are:
- Princeton University
- University of California San Diego
- University of California Irvine
- University of California Los Angeles
- Stanford University.
Some of the top research universities do less well here. Harvard is 16th, Chicago 37th, Columbia 56th and Cornell 92nd.
There are also some speciality rankings. The best public college is the University of California San Diego, the best small college is Massachusetts Institute of technology (MIT), the most transformative college is the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences and the best college that admits more than half of applicants is Texas A & M University College Station.
Source:
MONEY
