Colleges That Give You The Biggest Bang For Your Buck In 2021
Originally posted on Forbes.com By: Andrew DePietro Finding schools that are both affordable and offer a quality education is something all college-seekers want, especially these days. College tuition costs have been on a seemingly unending, inexorable rise for the last 30 years. Looking at tuition costs, even after adjusting to inflation, the year-after-year increase since the 1980s is incredible. According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the average cost of tuition at a four-year institution rose from $12,551 in the 1985-86 academic year ($5,504 in 1985 dollars) to $27,357 in 2017-2018. This means college tuition costs today are more than double what they were in the mid-1980s. And yet incomes, when you adjust to inflation, have simply not kept apace with rising tuition costs. The Covid-19 pandemic has added an entirely new and disruptive layer on top of these financial issues. Many more Americans are now strapped financially and thus the cost of college is a central concern. Both public college and private college tuition costs have increased constantly over the last three decades and at similar rates. In the face of such inevitability, the best strategy is to find schools that gives you a bargain. A recent study conducted by BrokeScholar analyzed nearly 400 of the best colleges in the United States and evaluated them all in terms of their affordability and academic quality. The study found a variety of colleges, both public and private, that offer cheap tuition without skimping on high-quality education. Geographically, the colleges that made the final list in the study are a good mix, with several from the South, Midwest, Mountain and West Coast states as well as a cluster in the Middle Atlantic states, like New York and New Jersey. Read on to find out the colleges that give you top-quality education at affordable rates.
Free Tuition Colleges
There were two colleges that made the final list that charge no tuition. The reason they can do this is because they operate work-study programs. Both of these schools are private, have competitive admission rates and good six-year graduation rates.
College of the Ozarks
Berea College
SUNY Colleges
In the study, some of the best colleges that are also affordable are several schools in the State University of New York (SUNY) public college system. Three colleges from this system made the final list of the best colleges: State University of New York at Binghamton, State University of New York at Geneseo and State University of New York at Purchase. Below they are referred to by their more common names.
Binghamton University
SUNY Geneseo
Purchase College
CUNY Colleges
Another cluster of the best colleges with cheap tuition are schools that are part of the City University of New York (CUNY) system. In-state tuitions at these colleges are well under $10,000 a year while at the same time having solid academic credentials.
Baruch College
Brooklyn College
Hunter College
Best Colleges of the South
Several public research and land-grant universities in the U.S. South made the final list of the best colleges with affordable tuition. Many of these southern public universities have annual tuitions for in-state students that are under $10,000 a year, such as Florida State University, whose in-state tuition and out-of-state are both cheaper than the average for all institutions.
Florida State University (FSU)
North Carolina State University
William & Mary
Georgia Institute of Technology
University of Central Florida (UCF)
James Madison University (JMU)
Other Best Colleges
In total, there are 20 schools the made the final list in the study of the best colleges with the most affordability. The remaining six best colleges are split geographically between the West, Midwest and Northeast NBN+0.7%. Their combined average six-year graduation rate is 82%, which is excellent compared to the national average of 62%.
