{"id":17792,"date":"2016-12-21T08:56:33","date_gmt":"2016-12-21T13:56:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=17792"},"modified":"2024-07-02T16:30:09","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T16:30:09","slug":"kiplingers-no-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=17792","title":{"rendered":"Carolina ranked top college value for 16th time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-17796 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/casdev.unc.edu\/collegearchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2016\/12\/Kiplingers2016-1024x698-300x204.jpg\" alt=\"kiplingers2016-1024x698\" width=\"300\" height=\"204\" \/>Once again, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is the best value in American public higher education, according to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kiplinger.com\/tool\/college\/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-public-colleges\/\">Kiplinger\u2019s Personal Finance<\/a>. This is the 16<sup>th<\/sup> time the nation\u2019s first public university is also first in value.<\/p>\n<p>Recognized for upholding academic quality and affordability, Carolina takes the top ranking among public colleges in two categories: Best in-state and best out-of-state value. In the overall ranking of the 300 best-value colleges and universities, UNC-Chapel Hill moves up one spot to 9<sup>th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cProviding an excellent and affordable education is a hallmark of our 223-year history,\u201d\u00a0said Chancellor Carol L. Folt. \u201cOnce again being recognized as the best value in American public higher education\u00a0demonstrates the success of Carolina\u2019s unwavering commitment to making the opportunities that come from attending a leading university available to students without burdening them with excess debt after graduation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rounding out the top three for best values in public colleges: The universities of Virginia and California at Berkeley. Taking the top spot in the combined best values list is Swarthmore College, followed by Davidson College and Princeton University.<\/p>\n<p>The magazine rankings are based on its definition of value, which is: A quality education at an affordable price. Some of the key measures for quality are: admission rates; the percentage of students who return sophomore year; graduation rates; test scores of incoming freshmen and student-to-faculty ratios. As for the financial measures, the magazine considers overall cost of tuition; the cost of books; room and board; the average percentage of need met by aid and the average debt a student accumulates before graduation.<\/p>\n<p>Nationally, 68 percent of students borrow money to pay for college and on average graduate $30,100 in debt. That\u2019s compared to 41 percent of students at UNC-Chapel Hill who borrow money to attend the University. The average amount of debt for those graduating students: $20,127.<\/p>\n<p>Currently, 44 percent of students at the University receive financial aid through signature, nationally recognized programs like the <a href=\"http:\/\/carolinacovenant.unc.edu\/\">Carolina Covenant<\/a>, which has offered more than 6,000 low-income students who earn admission the chance to graduate debt free. In 2015, 60 percent of seniors graduated with no debt. Another program, <a href=\"http:\/\/studentsuccess.unc.edu\/carolina-firsts\/\">Carolina Firsts<\/a> creates a path of opportunity for the 20 percent of undergraduates who will be the first in their families to graduate from a four-year campus.<\/p>\n<p>In 2016, UNC-Chapel Hill\u2019s four-year graduation rate was 82 percent, up 8 percentage points since 2005. The six-year rate was 91.4 percent and rose by more than 5 percentage points.<\/p>\n<p>The magazine\u2019s special report on best college values for 2017 and the complete rankings can be found <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kiplinger.com\/article\/college\/T014-C000-S002-kiplinger-s-best-college-values-2017.html\">online<\/a>\u00a0and also\u00a0in the February 2017 issue of <em>Kiplinger\u2019s Personal Finance<\/em>, on newsstands January 3<sup>rd<\/sup>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Once again, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is the best value in American public higher education, according to Kiplinger\u2019s Personal Finance. This is the 16th time the nation\u2019s first public university is also first in value.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":17796,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,18],"tags":[24,586,36,39,40],"class_list":["post-17792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-undergraduate-education","tag-carolina","tag-kiplingers-personal-finance","tag-unc","tag-unc-chapel-hill","tag-university-of-north-carolina-at-chapel-hill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17792"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47968,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17792\/revisions\/47968"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}