Boston College ranks 20th among U.S. private universities and 57th overall on Kiplinger's 2019 "Best College Values" survey, released July 25. This marks the third consecutive Kiplinger's survey to rank BC among the top 20 private universities assessed on factors related to academic quality and affordability.
Introduced in 1998, the rankings were expanded this year to included 400 public, private, and liberal arts colleges. Kiplinger's provides an overall ranking of all schools surveyed, plus breakout lists of top values in each category.
"We start with data on nearly 1,200 public and private four-year schools from Peterson’s Undergraduate Database, then add our own reporting," explained Kaitlin Pitsker, associate editor of Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, which publishes the rankings. "We narrow the list based on measures of academic quality. We then rank each school using cost and financial aid measures. Quality criteria account for 55% of total points, and cost criteria account for 45%."
The ranking methodology assesses areas such as student-to-faculty ratio; test scores of incoming freshmen; the percentage of students who return for sophomore year; graduation rate; cost and financial aid; and student debt at graduation, among other factors.
View the full list of 'Best Private College Values 2019' at Kiplinger.com.
—University Communications | July 2019