Muhlenberg Named A Best Value Among Private Liberal Arts Colleges By Consumer's Digest
Muhlenberg College was named the #6 best value in private liberal arts colleges in the nation in the June 2007 issue of Consumers Digest.Tuesday, May 8, 2007 01:59 PM
One hundred colleges and universities out of some 3,800 U.S. schools have been ranked as the top values by the publication. The rankings are based on attributes that validate or define the institutions’ academic prowess factored against annual cost of tuition and room-and-board.
The rankings, published in CD’s June issue, were derived from a formula that blended the academic excellence of first-time freshman at a school (standardized test scores, high-school rank, grade-point average) with the institution’s educational quality (4- and 6-year graduation rate, student-to-faculty ratio, percentage of faculty holding a PhD). That “value-index” score was factored with the cost of attending each school to determine which schools offered the most academic value per dollar. The rankings were based on information from 2005-06, the latest school year for which data were available.
“Expert opinions and solid recommendations are two of our strengths,” says Randy Weber, publisher, Consumers Digest. “We applied those strengths to this examination of our country’s higher-learning institutions. It’s designed to help parents and students find schools that will meet families’ performance and financial requirements.”
Consumers Digest first whittled down the list of schools based on a minimum level of academic performance by students institutions accepted. For public schools, the magazine only considered nonresident tuition figures. Military institutions and extremely specialized colleges were excluded. Financial aid was not factored in.
Twenty-seven public institutions are new to CD’s Top-50 list versus 2004’s evaluation. Among private colleges/universities and liberal arts schools, only 12 of the schools from 2004’s report remained this year.
"Top 25 Best Values for Private Liberal Arts Schools"
1 Centre College
2 Grinnel College
3 Rhodes College
4 DePauw University
5 Furman University
6 Muhlenberg College
7 Washington and Jefferson College
8 Sewanee--University of the South
9 Davidson College
10 Colorado College
11 Whitman College
12 Macalester College
13 Washington and Lee University
14 Bucknell University
15 Denison University
16 Williams College
17 Bryn Mawr College
18 Barnard College
19 Wheaton College
20 Amherst College
21 Trinity College
22 Oberlin College
23 Claremont McKenna College
24 Kenyon College
25 Reed College
