PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 25, No. 13, Jan. 19, 2006

Urbana campus ranked a ‘best value’

By Sharita Forrest, Assistant Editor
217-244-1072; slforres@illinois.edu

The UI’s Urbana-Champaign campus is one of the nation’s top 10 “best values” among America’s public colleges and universities, according to the most recent analysis by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine.

Kiplinger’s periodic 100 Best Values in Public Colleges survey examines four-year public schools with broad-based curricula, rating them based on a combination of educational quality, attendance costs and the availability of financial aid programs. The list is culled to 100 institutions that provide top-quality education at affordable rates. The 2006 rankings appear in the magazine’s February issue, which hit the newsstands Jan. 10.

The Urbana campus, which was ranked the eighth best value in public higher education again this year, consistently has ranked among the top 10 public institutions since Kiplinger’s began conducting the surveys in 1998. Illinois was ranked fourth. in the inaugural survey, fell to ninth in the 2000 survey, but moved up a notch to eighth in the 2002 and 2003 rankings.

“We’re pleased that Kiplinger has recognized our efforts to ensure that the citizens of Illinois have affordable access to a world-class university,” said Keith Marshall, associate provost. “It is rewarding to see that we have succeeded in our efforts to continue ensuring that students get a high-quality education despite substantial budget cuts in recent years.”

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill topped the 2006 rankings, as it has during each of the five surveys to date, followed by the University of Florida and the University of Virginia.

As a best value for out-of-state students, the Urbana campus ranked 14th in the 2006 survey, with the State University of New York College’s Geneseo and Binghamton campuses ranked at first and second place, respectively, followed by UNC Chapel Hill.

Kiplinger’s analyzed data for the 2005-06 academic year that more than 500 public colleges and universities provided to Thomson Peterson, a provider of educational materials and information on educational institutions, and supplemented the data with its own reporting.

Academic quality was the primary criterion, comprising about two-thirds of institutions’ total scores, and was determined by a combination of factors that included freshman performance on the SAT or ACT, admission rates, freshman retention rates, four-year and six-year graduation rates and student-faculty ratios.

To evaluate affordability, Kiplinger’s looked at total costs for in-state and out-of-state students and students with and without financial need; the percentage of students’ costs met by need-based assistance; and the average debt incurred by students prior to graduation.

Budget crises in many states and dwindling appropriations for higher education have pushed average tuition and fees at four-year public schools up by 57 percent during the past five years, and have forced many schools to slash financial aid programs, by as much as 20 to 40 percent at some institutions, the report said.

Meanwhile, tuition at four-year public schools for the 2005-06 academic year rose 7.1 percent to an average of $5,491, still a bargain in comparison with the $21,235 average tuition at four-year private schools, according to the College Board.

Kiplinger’s lauded top-ranked UNC for expanding its financial aid programs in 2005, creating 59 merit scholarships by devoting approximately $3.5 million a year in trademark licensing revenue to financial aid. UNC also broadened its Carolina Covenant aid program, which guarantees to meet 100 percent of the financial need for freshmen whose family incomes are at 200 percent or less of the federal poverty level, to freshmen from any state.

“Creative financing” mechanisms such as private fundraisers and lottery-ticket revenue also helped other top-rated institutions on Kiplinger’s list contain costs and bolster financial aid programs for their students.

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