The 50 best values in public colleges

By Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine

At the University of Virginia, the sense of history is as strong as the scent of boxwood. Students live and study in buildings designed by Thomas Jefferson. They tote their backpacks past fat white columns that line the walkways he created, duck into the gardens he envisioned and catch glimpses of the mountains he delighted in.

Some students speak English as a second language and others with a Vuh-ginia drawl, but they all soon learn the vocabulary of this "Academical Village." It's "The Grounds," not the campus; "The Lawn," not the quad; "first year," not freshman; and, always, "Mr. Jefferson."

Students talented enough to be admitted to Mr. Jefferson's village -- or to the other public institutions in Kiplinger's 2008-09 rankings of the best values in public colleges and universities -- are also smart enough to recognize the bargain they're getting.

Of our 100 top schools, led by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, fewer than two dozen cost more than $20,000 a year for in-state students. The University of Florida, ranked second, keeps total in-state costs below $12,000. In contrast, private colleges have lately averaged about $33,000 a year, and some have reached a heart-stopping $50,000.

• Watch the video to the right for tips on financing college tuition.

But the deals on our list aren't restricted to in-state students. Binghamton University, part of the State University of New York system, takes the top spot in value for out-of-state students. Non-New Yorkers pay $22,260, only about one-third more than in-state students, to enjoy the can-do culture of this young research institution. UNC-Chapel Hill charges $30,629 a year to out-of-state Tar Heels. That's not chump change, but it's cheap compared with the $50,000-plus sticker price at Duke University, a top-tier private school (and UNC competitor) in nearby Durham.

These schools have established a consistently firm footing at the top of our rankings. But you should also admire the up-and-comers, such as the University of Maryland-College Park, which catapulted to No. 9 from No. 28 last year, thanks to a lower student-faculty ratio and a big jump in graduation rates. West Chester University of Pennsylvania wins the "most improved" award: It leaped a whopping 40 slots, from 93rd to 53rd, after boosting graduation rates and offering more need-based aid. George Mason University, in Virginia, climbed from 77th to 46th as a result of improving its test scores and moving more graduates across the stage in four and six years.

Forecast: Higher costs

Will the economic turmoil of 2008 affect the ability of these colleges to deliver great value to next year's class? For institutions such as UNC-Chapel Hill and the University of Virginia, which have huge endowments and juggernaut fundraising efforts, probably not; they have the resources to keep operations running relatively smoothly. Leonard Sandridge, the executive vice president and chief operating officer at the University of Virginia, says that despite cuts in state funding and negative endowment returns for the most recent quarter, "If we've managed as well as we intend to, the customer will not experience a cutback."

But schools with fewer resources, especially in states with hard-hit economies, will have to scramble. Lois DeFleur, the president of Binghamton University, says her institution has already dealt with one budget cut and expects another as a result of the meltdown on Wall Street.

"Close to 25% of state revenues come from the financial sector," DeFleur says. To withstand such hits, the university has developed its own revenue-producing enterprises and pared nonacademic expenses. The latest strategy: cleaning campus buildings at night, when the job can be done faster.

Parents will likely have to pony up more, too, but that's nothing new. The average annual growth in total costs at public institutions has outpaced inflation by several percentage points over the past several decades, according to the College Board. Tuition has become a bigger part of the revenue pie as state appropriations have lagged. Don't expect prices to go down or state funding to go up soon, says Paul Lingenfelter, the president of the State Higher Education Executive Officers association.

"When times get tough, the path of least resistance is to restrain or even reduce higher-education spending," he says.

Filling the gap

As our rankings demonstrate, higher prices overall don't necessarily mean you'll pay more for your student's education. Financial-aid awards can knock thousands of dollars off the price tag, especially if your family qualifies for need-based aid. Of the top 10 schools in our rankings, UNC-Chapel Hill, the University of Virginia and the New College of Florida bestow enough need-based grant money to bring the average cost of in-state attendance to under $5,000 (less than the average price for a year of preschool).

If you earn too much to get in on those packages, click your heels together and wish yourself off to Georgia or Florida. At the University of Florida and the University of Georgia, No. 4 in our rankings, in-state students who meet the academic criteria get to attend tuition-free, and many students qualify. Both states established the programs to keep top students within state borders.

Such merit scholarship programs, as well as the recent trend among elite private colleges and universities to extend need-based aid to higher-income families, have put pressure on other public universities to offer more and better aid to middle-class students.

UNC-Chapel Hill is no exception. Holden Thorp, the new chancellor, says the university plans to be "more competitive on the merit-aid side," perhaps by adopting a program similar to that of Florida and Georgia, using private funds. The university currently meets the full financial need of all its students and generally keeps loans to one-third of the financial-aid package for higher-income families.

It has no plans, however, to break faith with the Carolina Covenant, a financial-aid program that replaces loans with grants for families whose incomes fall at or below 200% of the federal poverty level -- about $40,000 for a family of four. UNC-Chapel Hill was the first major public institution to eliminate debt for low-income students, an undertaking that has since been adopted by more than 80 colleges and universities.

Continued: Loan-free aid

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