Georgia Colleges give good pay back (Washington, Carl: chapel, private school, university)

[lastminutemom]

(and this doesn't factor in the HOPE which many in state students use, really reducing their costs)

Have you read the latest ranking by Smart Money magazine? Article titled "Why the Ivies aren't worth it" by Neil Parmar. They determined each school's "payback" ratio and used data from PayScale.com. "Smart money took a crack at quantifying the long-term value of a college education. Our goal was to spotlight the relationship between tuition costs and graduates earning power."

They looked at what graduates from 50 of the most expensive 4 year colleges earn in their early and midcareers. Then factored in their up-front tuition and fees. Their result is what they termed a "Payback" ratio.

Flaws in the data that were pointed out in the article - Avg. alum salaries included only those who stopped at a bachelor's degree. "The real earning power is what they end up doing in professional and graduate school," Carleton College Dean of Admissions. "Yale's director of student financial services points to his school's world class faculty, libraries, and art collections." The article also does not take into account the private school aid that a student may receive. They used the full price tags.

Top public schools
1. UGA
2. Texas A&M
3. UT Austin
4. Georgia Tech
5. U of Washington
6. Rutgers
7. U of Illinois
8. Clemson
9. Purdue
10. UNC Chapel Hill

Top Liberal Arts Schools
1. Washington & Lee (19th overall)
2. Richmond (22nd overall)
3. Lafayette (28th overall)
4. College of Holy Cross
5. Bucknell
6. Amherst
7. Occidential
8. Colgate
9. Bowdoin
10. Ursinus

Overall rankings -
Lists top Public schools as above
11. Ohio State
12. UVA
13. Indiana
14 UC Davis
15. U Rhode Island
16. U Delaware
17. Penn State
18. U Mass Amherst
19. Washington & Lee
20. Princeton
21. Dartmouth
22. U Richmond
23. U New Hampshire
24. Yale
25. Harvard

[wxjay]

I'm suspicious of this list simply because University of RI is rated above Penn State or Princeton. Having been raised in RI and knowing SEVERAL of my high school classmates that went to URI and graduated, well...