Twenty-two Virginia colleges are featured in Money Magazine’s “Best Colleges in America” for 2024, including VMI, UVA and the University of Mary Washington.
VMI earned 5 stars, William & Mary, UVA and VTech all received 4.5 stars and UMW was recognized with a 3.5-star rating.
Potomac Local News reported that UMW was recognized for the second year and the list has been issued for 10 years. Money Magazine’s “Best Colleges in America” evaluates more than 700 four-year colleges based on quality, affordability and future earning potential of graduates.
“We hope students and parents use our list to discover new colleges that may be worth their attention, and perhaps more importantly, we want our analysis to encourage readers to think critically about what they’re paying for college and what sort of outcomes they can expect in return,” Money Magazine Education Editor Kaitlin Mulhere said.
The magazine’s star rating includes metrics such as net price of a degree, median earnings after graduation and average borrowing rates.
“Value add” is also recorded by the list, which measures a school’s actual performance against predicted outcomes and assesses how effectively a college impacts graduates’ success.
Money Magazine begins with 2,400 four-year private nonprofit and public colleges in the United States, and colleges that make the initial cut must have at least 500 undergraduate students or 150 freshmen, no financial distress, sufficient and reliable data for analysis and a graduation rate at or above the median for institutional category.
In the U.S., 745 colleges met the criteria and were ranked based on 25 factors in three categories.
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Rebecca Barnabi
