Compare best values colleges and universities
Provided by:

Definitions of terms:

Best Values Rankings: These are schools that are above average academically and cost considerably less than many other schools when the financial aid, in the form of need-based grants, that they dispense is taken into account.

How Best Values Rankings are formulated: The formula used to determine which schools offer the best value relates a schools' academic quality, as indicated by its U.S. News ranking, to the net cost of attendance for a student who receives the average level of financial aid. The higher the quality of the program and the lower the cost, the better the deal. Only schools ranked in the top half of their categories are included, on the premise that the most significant values are among colleges that are above average academically.

Check out the best values for undergrad degrees at:

Liberal Arts Colleges: Liberal arts colleges emphasize undergraduate education and award at least half their degrees in the liberal arts. Most are private institutions, but 20 are public.

Comprehensive Colleges by Region: Comprehensive colleges focus on undergraduate education and offer a range of degree programs in the liberal arts and in professional fields such as business, nursing, and education. They are ranked within four regions: North, South, Midwest, and West.

Universities offering Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctoral Degrees: National universities offer a wide range of undergraduate majors as well as master's and doctoral degrees; many strongly emphasize research.

Universities offering Bachelor's and Master's Degrees by Region: Master's universities provide a full range of undergraduate and master's programs, but few, if any, doctoral programs. They are ranked within four regions: North, South, Midwest, and West.

How US News College Rankings are formulated: To rank colleges, U.S. News first places each school into categories based on mission (research university or liberal arts college) and, for universities offering a range of master's programs and colleges focusing on undergraduate education without a particular emphasis on the liberal arts, by location (North, South, Midwest, and West). Universities where there is a focus on research and that offer several doctoral programs are ranked separately from liberal arts colleges, and master's universities and comprehensive colleges are compared against other schools in the same group and region. Second, U.S. News gathers data from and about each school in 15 areas related to academic excellence. Each indicator is assigned a weight (expressed as a percentage) based on U.S. News judgments about which measures of quality matter most. Third, the colleges are ranked based on their composite weighted score. U.S. News publishes the numeric rank of roughly the top half of schools in each of the 10 categories; the remainder are placed into the third and fourth tiers, listed alphabetically, based on their overall score in their category.