19 PA Colleges Among Best Values In America, Kiplinger Says

With the rising cost of college tuition and the enormous amount of student debt most graduates take on, prospective college students predictably want to get the most for their money. For students planning to enroll this year, a new list ranks the best value colleges in the country for 2018 and 19 of those colleges are right here in Pennsylvania.

The list is compiled by Kiplinger, a personal finance and business forecasts publisher. Kiplinger notes that nationally over the past 20 years, tuition for in-state students attending public four-year universities has gone up 82 percent when adjusted for inflation. Tuition hikes have been less dramatic at private, non-profit four-year colleges, but still jumped 59 percent.

Student loan debt has also gone up while average earnings of recent college graduates have remained relatively flat, according to Kiplinger. The publication’s annual list of the 300 best value colleges and universities weighs quality with affordability, giving students a resource to see where they’ll get the most for their investment.

Kiplinger defines value as “a high-quality education at an affordable price.”

The 19 Pennsylvania institutions that are among 300 in the country that rank as “best value colleges” are:

• Swarthmore College (3); Average debt at graduation: $22,957
• Haverford College (31); Average debt at graduation: $13,000
• University of Pennsylvania (41); Average debt at graduation: $25,536
• Bryn Mawr College (45); Average debt at graduation: $23,081
• Lafayette College (60); Average debt at graduation: $29,324
• Lehigh University (72); Average debt at graduation: $34,215
• Bucknell University (77); Average debt at graduation: $22,600
• Franklin & Marshall College (87); Average debt at graduation: $27,133
• Dickinson College (90); Average debt at graduation: $26,908
• Villanova University (100); Average debt at graduation: $35,545
• Gettysburg College (101); Average debt at graduation: $31,169
• Muhlenberg College (130); Average debt at graduation: $31,063
• Carnegie Mellon University (140); Average debt at graduation: $30,866
• University of Pittsburgh (145); Average debt at graduation: $38,612
• Penn State University Park (206); Average debt at graduation: $37,213
• Temple University (254); Average debt at graduation: $37,708
• Geneva College (260); Average debt at graduation: $36,278
• Duquesne University (294); Average debt at graduation: $41,272
• Saint Francis University (295); Average debt at graduation: $31,644

To come up with the rankings, Kiplinger looks at admission and graduation rates, academic support, tuition costs and financial aid, average student debt and the salary graduates might earn a decade after they graduate. (You can read more about Kiplinger’s methodology here.)

The top 10 colleges on the list are:

1. Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
2. Davidson College, Davidson, North Carolina
3. Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania
4. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusett
5. Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
6. Pomona College, Claremont, California
7. Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee
8. Rice University, Houston, Texas
9. Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia
10. Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts

You can see the full list here.

With reporting by Feroze Dhanoa

Photo via Shutterstock