For some high school students, finding the right college to attend can be overwhelming.
Parents and graduating seniors look to see which college will be the best bang for their buck and which college will have the best overall performance.
Money, the personal finance website, and SoFi, a digital financial service, have teamed up to release the 10th edition of the 2024 list of the best colleges that can provide some help.
The annual list used a unique ranking system that analyzes flagship universities that have above-average graduation rates under three key factors: quality, affordability and future earnings compared to their projected performance based on their student body.
These data points are important factors like Money’s unique calculation of a degree’s net price, average debt ratios, median income, and four “value-added” calculations that measure a school’s actual performance.
This year’s list includes an analysis of 745 schools with a star rating system that is based on the philosophy that there are a variety of outstanding, high-value colleges across the country, according to the news release.
Of 745 schools, 54 received a five-star rating and two are from New Jersey.
The New Jersey Institute of Technology and Princeton University received a five-star rating.
“We hope students and parents will use our list to discover new colleges that may be worth their attention and, perhaps most importantly, we want our analysis to encourage readers to think critically about what they are paying for college and what kind of results can expect in return,” said Money education editor Kaitlin Mulhere.
2024 best universities
…according to Money and SoFi
- Amherst University
- Babson University
- Bentley University
- Berea College
- Boston College
- Bowdoin University
- brown university
- California Institute of Technology
- California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
- California Polytechnic State University, Pomona
- California State University, Long Beach
- California State University, Estanislao
- Carnegie Mellon University
- Claremont McKenna University
- Columbia University
- Cornell University
- CUNY Bernard M. Baruch College
- Dartmouth University
- Davidson University
- Duke University
- Georgetown University
- Georgia Institute of Technology
- Harvard University
- Harvey Mudd University
- Johns Hopkins University
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Massachusetts Maritime Academy
- New Jersey Institute of Technology
- Northwestern University
- Pomona University
- Princeton University
- rice university
- Stanford University
- Swarthmore University
- The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art
- University of California, Berkeley
- University of California, Davis
- University of California, Irvine
- University of California, Los Angeles
- University of California, Riverside
- University of California, San Diego
- University of Chicago
- University of Florida
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
- University of Michigan
- University of Notre Dame
- University of Pennsylvania
- Virginia Military Institute
- Washington and Lee University
- Washington University in St. Louis
- Wellesley University
- Wesleyan University
- williams university
- Yale University
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