Comments on: Best Value Colleges from Princeton Review: Information You Can Lose

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:20:39 +0000

Dear Draco,
Thanks for your comment, and congrats on your award to Pomona. Indeed, Pomona is a great value for those who are accepted. But as you know, admission to Pomona is enormously competitive. I’m very happy for you. But keep in mind that there are many, many fine students who were denied admission to Pomona. Will they find a similar value? It depends very much on which colleges they applied to and which accepted them. I stand by my belief that Princeton Review’s stats are not great for most students who want to find the best value. But that does not negate your accomplishment in any way. I wish you all the best!

By: Dracofiredong

Dracofiredong — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 23:46:58 +0000

What? This is a best value. Good education for low price. I got into Pomona and they gave me 44,000 leaving our family to pay only 8,000. That is cheaper than how I would pay in my state school or even community college. You telling me that that is not useful? there is something wrong with you man. Princeton Review publish these information, so those who get scared by the college prices can see that they are quite affordable. Sure, slackers in high school never have a chance of getting into these top schools, but it is quite a value. So I gotta point out that Princeton Review did an excellent job.

By: Carnival of Family Life | Colloquium

Carnival of Family Life | Colloquium — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 00:01:22 +0000

[...] Montgomery presents Best Value Colleges from Princeton Review: Information You Can Lose posted at Great College Advice, opining that “ratings are titillating and entertaining, but [...]

By: Adamissions » Blog Archive » Carnival of College Admission: Welcome to 2009

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 10:07:15 +0000

[...] Mark Montgomery who says the ratings game is “much ado about nothing” in his post Best Value Colleges from Princeton Review: Information You Can Lose at Great College Advice. Mark followed up on his own post with several others including Value [...]

By: markm

markm — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 07:40:05 +0000

Hi, Nancy. Thanks for the comment and the visit. You have a good point, and I have tried to respond to it in another post. Bargains exist, but who defines what is really a bargain: the producer or the consumer? I think the definition of a bargain is, like beauty, in the eye of the beholder.

Here’s the link to the new post: http://greatcollegeadvice.com/value-universities-for-the-rest-of-us-a-difficult-claim-to-maintain/

Thanks again for the conversation!

By: Value Universities for the “Rest of Us”–A Difficult Claim To Maintain

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 07:37:29 +0000

[...] a reader called me out on my decision to focus in a recent post on the Top 10 Value Colleges as identified by the Princeton Review (Kiplinger’s has a similar list, about which I also [...]

By: Nancy

Nancy — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 03:21:06 +0000

You’ve published the top ten private colleges here – much more relevant to “the rest of us” is the top ten public colleges – see http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/best-value-colleges.htm?loc=interstitialskip for the list

By: More Best Value Rankings..With No More Insight

More Best Value Rankings..With No More Insight — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:19:21 +0000

[...] I wrote about Princeton Review’s rankings of the “Best Value” colleges.Â Kiplinger’s just came out with it’s own [...]

By: markm

markm — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:32:03 +0000

Thanks for the heads up from Smart Money. All these averages and attempts to measure “value” based on statistics also forget the “value” of learning for learning’s sake. If it’s all about jobs, we need only apprenticeships and technical schools. But I personally take a more Socratic view: “the unexamined life is not worth living.” We can’t put a value on most of the stuff I learned in college. But I value my education much more than dollars can ever represent.

By: Dave from uSphere

Dave from uSphere — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:48:31 +0000

Better was the listing from Smart Money — in the article that says “Why the Ivies aren’t worth it” — with “Return on Tuition.”

This assumes that you pay full freight, of course.

Best returns were based on average payback of the out of state degree cost vs. median salary 15 years after graduation.

Georgia won, Texas A&M second.

They didn’t look at everything.

So yeah, I’m not a big fan of rankings either.