U-M Offers Second-Best Value in Country: Ranking

Ann Arbor, MI — The University of Michigan is the second-best in the country among colleges and universities when it comes to delivering a great education at prices students and their families can afford.

Princeton University claimed the top spot in the ranking released by CNN Money, which narrowed down the roughly 2,000 four-year colleges and universities in the United States, screening out schools with financial difficulties, low graduation rates and fewer than 500 undergraduate students.

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The 705 colleges left were ranked based on 24 factors in three categories: educational quality, affordability, and alumni success.

Read the full methodology here.

The school has a 91 percent graduation rate, and students complete their degree requirements within 4.5 years. On average, they leave school with about $22,000 in debt and earn salaries of $59,000 within five years of graduation.

CNN Money wrote of the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (its Dearborn campus also made the cut):

Who wouldn’t want to be a part of an alumni association that has a chapter on the moon? The crew of Apollo 15, all U-M grads, actually left a club charter behind on the lunar surface.

One of the country’s most affordable elite schools, the University of Michigan accepts less than a third of the nearly 50,000 students who apply annually.

Michiganders who get in receive an especially good deal at the school, which is one of only 11 in MONEY’s top 50 where the average in-state cost of a degree totals less than $100,000.

The National Science Foundation ranks Michigan as the top public research university in terms of money spent on research and development, a position the school has held since 2010.

Yet the faculty also prides itself on teaching. Chemistry professor Brian Coppola, for example, was named one of the country’s “Teachers of the Year” in 2009, and one of the university’s top annual awards — the Arthur F. Thurnau Professorship — recognizes faculty members committed to undergraduate teaching.
Sports permeate campus life.

The school’s Division I football and basketball teams draw national television audiences as well as hordes of student fanatics; meanwhile, the lesser-known swimming and diving team each won national championships in 2013, and the men’s gymnastics team won in 2013 and 2014.

For non-athletes, U-M provides countless clubs and opportunities for civic engagement. And Ann Arbor, a quintessential college town, offers a distracting number of music venues, restaurants, museums, and theaters.

Here is how other Michigan schools ranked:
No. 54: Michigan State University, East Lansing
No. 90: Michigan Technological Institute, Houghton
No. 181: Hope College, Holland
No. 182: Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo
No. 224: Calvin College, Grand Rapids
No. 302: Albion College, Albion
No. 372: Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo
No. 433: Alma College, Alma
No. 435: Grand Valley State University, Allendale
No. 564: University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn
No. 579: Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant
No. 635: Adrian College, Adrian
No. 664: College for Creative Studies, Detroit
No. 667: Northern Michigan University, Marquette

Get the full ranking here.

Image: calamity_sal via Flickr / Creative Commons