Washington Monthly - September/October 2014 - 23

AMERICA'S BESTBANG-FOR-THEBUCK COLLEGES 2014
Our exclusive list of schools that help non-wealthy
students attain marketable degrees at affordable prices.
By Robert Kelchen

his magazine has published more articles over the last
decade decrying the ever-rising price of college than
we care to count. In 2012, we got tired of hearing ourselves whine and decided to do something more. So we altered our college rankings in a way that rewards schools that
do a good job of conferring degrees on middle- and lowerincome students while charging them reasonable prices.
We called this our "Best Bang for the Buck" measure. Last
year we created a whole new Best Bang for the Buck ranking,
highlighting 349 colleges that score well on measures of access, affordability, and student outcomes. We hoped our efforts would provoke a conversation about Washington's willingness to keep funding, via federal grants and loans, endless
tuition hikes with no questions asked.
Then, a day before our 2013 college rankings went public, President Barack Obama announced that his administration would begin rating colleges based on measures of access,
affordability, and student outcomes similar to those in our
Best Bang for the Buck list.
Coincidence? We think not.
The gears of Washington grind slowly, however. The administration says a first draft of its new rating system won't
be published until this fall. A final version is scheduled to be
released by fall 2015, presuming its enemies in Congress and
in the higher education lobbying community aren't able to
kill it (see Laura Colarusso and Jon Marcus, "Who's Afraid of
College Rankings?," page 43).
So, for those who don't want to wait (or bet) on Washington, we offer our second annual Best Bang for the Buck
ranking-our exclusive list of the colleges in America that
do the best job of helping non-wealthy students attain marketable degrees at affordable prices. Out of the 1,540 colleges and universities in our broader rankings, only 386 made
the cut as Best Bang for the Buck schools. You can see the

top 100 starting on page 26 and the rest on our website at
washingtonmonthly.com.
To get on our list, colleges had to meet four criteria in
the most recent year. First, to make sure they aren't just catering to the affluent, at least 20 percent of their students
must be receiving Pell Grants, which go to students of modest means (typically those with annual household incomes
below $50,000). Second, they must have a graduation rate of
at least 50 percent-hardly an exacting standard, but a fair
one considering that we're requiring that a fifth of their student body have lower incomes, a demographic that tends to
graduate in lower numbers. Third, each school's actual graduation rate must meet or exceed the rate that would be statistically predicted for that school given the number of lowerincome students admitted (among other things, this calculation assures that schools with more than the minimum 20
percent of Pell students aren't penalized). Fourth, to make
sure their graduates are earning enough in the workforce to
at least cover their student loans, schools must have a student loan default rate of 10 percent or less.
Once we compiled the list, we applied the "buck" part
of the measure by ranking the schools based on their net
price of attendance. (Net price is the average tuition that
first-time, full-time students from families with an annual
income of $75,000 or less actually pay after subtracting the
need-based financial aid they receive.)

he first thing you'll notice is that the top three schools
on this year's list are City University of New York
campuses (Brooklyn, Queens, and Baruch). The CUNY
schools are legendary for having educated wave after wave
of first-generation students, many from immigrant backgrounds, from Jonas Salk to Jennifer Lopez. These three
colleges continue that tradition thanks to generous financWashington Monthly

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Washington Monthly - September/October 2014

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