Washington Monthly - September/October 2020 - 51

AMERICA'S BEST BANG
FOR THE BUCK COLLEGES
Our one-of-a-kind list of schools that help non-wealthy
students attain marketable degrees at affordable prices.
By Robert Kelchen

he coronavirus pandemic and the resulting economic
crisis have made colleges' role in enhancing social mobility more important than ever. Typically, during recessions, more Americans enroll in colleges and universities
in an effort to boost their job prospects. We may not see enrollments increase until after the public health crisis passes-
which could take a year or two-but millions of Americans are
doubtlessly thinking ahead to what colleges can do for them.
For the ninth year, we produced a ranking of Best Bang
for the Buck colleges, which is laser focused on showing which
colleges do a good job promoting social mobility-and which
don't. The rankings are broken down by region, beginning on
page 52. (We used the same data and methodology to create
the social mobility portion of the main rankings, which begin on page 62; the methodology is explained on page 106.)
We had to use the same data for median earnings and student loan repayment rates as last year, as the U.S. Department
of Education did not update college-level data in the College
Scorecard this year. Hopefully the federal government will
continue to share this important information with the public going forward.
The Best Bang for the Buck colleges across each of the
five regions are a mix of some of America's most elite institutions and hidden gems with strong student outcomes and a
commitment to upward mobility. In the Northeast, four Ivy
League universities and MIT are joined in the top 10 by Goddard College, the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, Bentley University, the City University of New York's Baruch College, and Rutgers University-Newark. At Baruch College, lowincome students with Pell Grants graduate at essentially the
same rate as their wealthier peers. And the cost of attending is
reasonable; for a student from a household earning less than
$75,000, Baruch has a net price of $2,789 per year. This is what
an engine of social mobility looks like.
In the South and Midwest, Berea College and College of
the Ozarks maintain their consistently high rankings thanks
to their economic diversity, relatively strong graduation rates,
and commitment to meeting students' financial need. Public

universities do well in both regions, with the University of Illinois campuses in Chicago and Urbana-Champaign landing
within the top five in the Midwest and Texas A&M's College
Station and Texarkana campuses joining the University of
Texas-Rio Grande Valley in the top five. More than half of
UT-Rio Grande Valley students are the first in their families to
attend college, and the average net price is just $3,298 per year.
In the Southeast, Georgetown University and Washington and Lee take the top two spots again this year, reflecting
the fact that they serve their lower-income students exceptionally well. But combined, they only graduated 262 Pell recipients last year-about a fifth of the number that graduated from seventh-ranked Florida International University,
where nearly half of the students are first generation. Finally,
in the West, the California State University system continues
to dominate the region. Fourteen of the top 23 colleges in the
West are Cal State campuses, with Stanislaus taking the top
spot this year. The University of Washington's Tacoma campus and Utah State University also maintained their traditional spots in the top 10.
We only display the top 50 colleges in print. Online, we
list the full 200-plus colleges per region. Toward the bottom
of those rankings, we find a mix of middling public and private nonprofit colleges along with a number of for-profit college chains. In a time when students and their families are
balking at paying high tuition prices for mediocre student
outcomes, many of these colleges will struggle and may be
forced to change their behavior or risk going out of business.
But not all of them. Liberty University, for example, is in no
danger of closing, thanks to its billion-dollar endowment and
around 100,000 students attending online, but their net price
of $25,272 and 44 percent eight-year graduation rate result in
them being ranked 262nd of 278 colleges in the Southeast.
They can-and must-do better.
Robert Kelchen, an associate professor of higher education at
Seton Hall University, is data manager of the Washington Monthly
College Guide.
Washington Monthly 51

Washington Monthly - September/October 2020

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