Academy ranks among nation's best value colleges

  • Published
  • U.S. Air Force Academy Public Affairs
U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. --  The Academy was ranked as one of the nation's 200 best value colleges by The Princeton Review Feb. 3.

The announcement came in the release of The Princeton Review's "Colleges That Pay You Back: The 200 Best Value Colleges and What It Takes to Get In - 2015 Edition" book. The book and associated online resources address two major concerns of college applicants and their parents: paying for college and graduating with a good job and paycheck.

The Academy ranked as one of the nation's 77 best public schools, and among the nation's top nine tuition-free schools. The tuition-free schools were separately profiled and not included in the book's other ranking lists.

The tuition-free schools list includes each of the five service academies, as well as Berea College, College of the Ozarks, Deep Springs College and the Webb Institute.

The Academy has regularly ranked among the top colleges in the nation by The Princeton Review over the past decade. In August,  the review ranked the Academy among the best regional colleges in the West, and as one of its Best 379 Colleges.

"We strongly recommend these schools," said Robert Franek, The Princeton Review's senior vice president and lead author of the book. "They deliver outstanding academics while working to be affordable to students with need - offering generous financial aid or charging a relatively low cost of attendance (or both). Plus their students graduate with great career prospects."

The Princeton Review developed a unique "Return-on-Education" rating to winnow its list of colleges for this book. ROE measured 40 weighted data points, ranging from academics, cost, financial aid and student debt to statistics on graduation rates, alumni salaries, and job satisfaction.

The ROE rating is based on data collected in 2013-2014 from surveys of administrators and students at 650 colleges, plus surveys conducted by PayScale.com through April 2014 of alumni of the same schools.

For more information on the college rankings, visit www.princetonreview.com.