Money magazines ranking of top colleges for your money.

[setshot]

Valpo ranks #214 out #665 colleges that Money mag. released today(7/28/14) Not bad - upper third but could be better. Onward and upward.

[VULB#62]

Any familiar names in the next 50 above us?

[setshot]

Our beloved Butler U. ranked #419. Others: DePauw 134,William Jewel 156, Wabash also 214,Gettysburg 138,St. Olaf 359 and so on. 

[VULB#62]

DePauw I can see at 134, but William Jewel at 156     Whoa.  Must be a value-based thing.  Best educational bang for the buck?

[Dave_2010]

I remember Butler giving me nearly 2x the scholarship $ that Valpo did and still being higher in tuition costs, never mind room and board in Indianapolis vis-a-vis NWI. For reference sake, this was in 2006. That BU is that far down the list comes as no surprise to me.

[VULB#62]

Went to the article and saw where Harvard is 6th and NUMBER 1 is Babson College (also in Boston area).

Here's a scrape from the article on how they arrived at their ranking:

Quality of Education (1/3 weighting)
Six-year graduation rate (25%), which is widely recognized as one of the most important indicators of a college's quality
Peer quality (15%), measured by the standardized test scores of entering freshman
Instructor quality (15%), measured by the student-to-faulty ratio and the college's average grade from Ratemyprofessor.com.
Students' perception of quality (20%), measured by the percentage of accepted students who enroll in that college, known as yield
Value-added graduation rate (25%), or the difference between a school's actual graduation rate and its expected rate, based on the economic and academic profile of the student body (measured by the percentage of attendees receiving Pell grants given to low-income students and the average standardized test scores of incoming freshmen)

Affordability (1/3 weighting)
Net price of a degree (40%), or the estimated amount a typical freshman starting in 2014 will pay to earn a degree taking into account the college's sticker price; the school's average need, merit, and athletic financial aid; tuition inflation; and the average time it takes students to graduate from the school
Debt (40%), taking into account both student debt upon graduation (20%) and parent federal PLUS loans (20%)
Student loan default risk (10%), a calculation of the odds that a student at the college will end up being unable to pay back a federal student loan
Value-added student loan default risk (10%), adjusted for the economic and academic profile of the student body

Outcomes (1/3 weighting)
Early (20%) and mid-career earnings (10%), as reported to Payscale.com by a school's alumni
Earnings adjusted by majors (30%) to see whether students at a particular school earn more or less than would be expected given the mix of majors at that school
Value-added earnings (30%), adjusted for the economic and academic profile of each school's student body
Career services (10%), staffing per 1,000 students