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What about the University of California. Berkeley and UCLA are top ranked schools and are still pretty cheap for people who live in-state, which is a huge percent of the US population.

Yeah, the UC system has some good choices.

Also, Canadian schools provide an excellent education at a great value. There is a wide choice of schools in Canada, which include major research institutions as well as small liberal arts-style schools. Fox News in Washington D.C. actually just did a story on Canadian universities: http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/maryland/030109_canadian_colleges_can_be_ec onomic_bargain

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MIT & Cal Tech should rank first. These are tough schools loaded with brilliant minds interested in education and solving problems.. After four years you get a degree and recruiters are all over the students because they know the meaning of the word "work". Students who choose these schools make a conscious choice to study hard- they can go to any school- but choose education rather than playing party boy on other peoples money. Berkeley, another great gem is missing from the list. The last thing this country needs during these precarious times are more GW legacy types or Rumsfeld buttoned down brains. Alot of good that Skull and Bones, Eating Club Crap has accomplished!!

Cal, UCLA, Michigan are all generally considered to be on par with UVA. Their in-state and out-of state tuition are the same.

This article is problematic not because of its bias towards east coast schools (though the author's subjectivity is egregious), but its illogical favoritism of small, rather obscure liberal arts colleges at the expense of top-tier, state funded research universities. To begin, the author chooses Harvard as the number 2 most "valuable" school, presumably because it "will always open doors" for its graduates. Fine, that's a good reason to earn the #2 stop on a top 20 "worth the price" list. Harvard is, indeed, home to an extraordinary group of faculty, Nobel Laureates, and researchers who provide their students with the top tier education that employers and higher learning institutions trust, value, and covet. But to follow Harvard with The New College of Florida, where all classes are Pass/Fail (perhaps a more toxic approach to performance evaluation than Harvard's lenient grade-inflationary practices) and where the main objective of its professors is not to conduct innovative research and development in their field but rather to culminate a strong teacher-student relationship vis-a-vis small class sizes and a hyperactive student adviser department is inaccurate at best and dangerous at worst.
First off, research institutions such as the University of California, Berkeley (and Los Angeles), University of Wisconsin, and University of Michigan provide their undergraduates with unique, unparalleled resources like laboratories stocked with science professors who pioneer the fields of medicine, mathematics, and physics, libraries where freshman may be sitting a seat away from the world's leading political theorist, historian and/or philosopher, and yes, great basketball and football teams to match (for those who who equate a raging football tailgate with a valuable college package). Graduates from these universities are oftentimes better trained to "think outside the box" and make use of their available resources, more seasoned to operate independently and efficiently, and possess a greater understanding of the work-reward ratio that defines our capitalist economy, for you won't find grade inflation or brown-nosing awards at these schools. Not to mention, first-class knowledge of how to get around a bureaucratic system second only to that of the Federal Government, a life tool which students from Kentucky's Centre College may only acquire some years after leaving Arlington's borders and letting go of the many hands that held them.
Finally, in promoting small, liberal arts schools and Ivy Leaguers on behalf of their seminar-style classes and generous tuition packages, the author is exacerbating the very problem she cites as the cause of large, public research universities' alleged lack of value. Public schools such as UC Berkeley and University of Michigan fall below Harvard and Vanderbilt University in regards to financial aid and assistance not because of a lack of generosity but because of their historic admission of the "the many" rather than "the few." While Harvard and Yale practiced an openly nepotistic admissions policy, favoring the sons and (sometimes) daughters of the wealthiest, Anglo-Saxon politicians and businessmen for centuries, schools like Berkeley opened their doors to anybody with a heart for academia, a policy which explains the considerable gap between Harvard's and Berkeley's alumni-supplied endowments. This is not to say that Berkeley graduates are more or less equipped to contribute to the real world, just that Berkeley is less equipped to meet the financial needs of its 30,000 students, many of which come from low-income, minority households, yet another consequence of Western Welcome in contrast to seaborg privilege and exclusion (think Harvey Milk versus John F. Kennedy). Hence, by encouraging incoming freshman and their budgeting parents to filter their acceptance letters on the basis of faculty-student ratios and financial aid and stipend packages, the author is contributing to the financial issues plaguing large, state-funded research universities who rely so much on their undergraduates' tuition to fund not only the faculty's research expenses and teaching salaries but also the graduate students that are lacking from schools such as the College of New Jersey and Swarthmore College. For in the end, the small-liberal arts colleges that fill this top-20 list would be obsolete without the research contributions of huge, state schools like Wisconsin, Berkeley, UCLA and Michigan, which may not be as generous financially, but have never failed to provide an education of the utmost, if not priceless, value.

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This article is problematic not because of its bias towards east coast schools (though the author's subjectivity is egregious), but its illogical favoritism of small, rather obscure liberal arts colleges at the expense of top-tier, state funded research universities. To begin, the author chooses Harvard as the number 2 most "valuable" school, presumably because it "will always open doors" for its graduates. Fine, that's a good reason to earn the #2 stop on a top 20 "worth the price" list. Harvard is, indeed, home to an extraordinary group of faculty, Nobel Laureates, and researchers who provide their students with the top tier education that employers and higher learning institutions trust, value, and covet. But to follow Harvard with The New College of Florida, where all classes are Pass/Fail (perhaps a more toxic approach to performance evaluation than Harvard's lenient grade-inflationary practices) and where the main objective of its professors is not to conduct innovative research and development in their field but rather to culminate a strong teacher-student relationship vis-a-vis small class sizes and a hyperactive student adviser department is inaccurate at best and dangerous at worst.
First off, research institutions such as the University of California, Berkeley (and Los Angeles), University of Wisconsin, and University of Michigan provide their undergraduates with unique, unparalleled resources like laboratories stocked with science professors who pioneer the fields of medicine, mathematics, and physics, libraries where freshman may be sitting a seat away from the world's leading political theorist, historian and/or philosopher, and yes, great basketball and football teams to match (for those who who equate a raging football tailgate with a valuable college package). Graduates from these universities are oftentimes better trained to "think outside the box" and make use of their available resources, more seasoned to operate independently and efficiently, and possess a greater understanding of the work-reward ratio that defines our capitalist economy, for you won't find grade inflation or brown-nosing awards at these schools. Not to mention, first-class knowledge of how to get around a bureaucratic system second only to that of the Federal Government, a life tool which students from Kentucky's Centre College may only acquire some years after leaving Arlington's borders and letting go of the many hands that held them.
Finally, in promoting small, liberal arts schools and Ivy Leaguers on behalf of their seminar-style classes and generous tuition packages, the author is exacerbating the very problem she cites as the cause of large, public research universities' alleged lack of value. Public schools such as UC Berkeley and University of Michigan fall below Harvard and Vanderbilt University in regards to financial aid and assistance not because of a lack of generosity but because of their historic admission of the "the many" rather than "the few." While Harvard and Yale practiced an openly nepotistic admissions policy, favoring the sons and (sometimes) daughters of the wealthiest, Anglo-Saxon politicians and businessmen for centuries, schools like Berkeley opened their doors to anybody with a heart for academia, a policy which explains the considerable gap between Harvard's and Berkeley's alumni-supplied endowments. This is not to say that Berkeley graduates are more or less equipped to contribute to the real world, just that Berkeley is less equipped to meet the financial needs of its 30,000 students, many of which come from low-income, minority households, yet another consequence of Western Welcome in contrast to seaborg privilege and exclusion (think Harvey Milk versus John F. Kennedy). Hence, by encouraging incoming freshman and their budgeting parents to filter their acceptance letters on the basis of faculty-student ratios and financial aid and stipend packages, the author is contributing to the financial issues plaguing large, state-funded research universities who rely so much on their undergraduates' tuition to fund not only the faculty's research expenses and teaching salaries but also the graduate students that are lacking from schools such as the College of New Jersey and Swarthmore College. For in the end, the small-liberal arts colleges that fill this top-20 list would be obsolete without the research contributions of huge, state schools like Wisconsin, Berkeley, UCLA and Michigan, which may not be as generous financially, but have never failed to provide an education of the utmost, if not priceless, value.

I'm extremely disappointed in this article. Three Ivy Leagues? Yeah, yeah. We're all aware that degrees from Harvard, Yale and Cornell gather a lot of respect. We're also all aware that they have massive endowments that allow for nice financial aid packages. But what about the costs of endless piano lessons, SAT prep and private school tuition that has to come before that just to get into Harvard, Yale or Cornell. Let's face it: for most people, those schools are unrealistic. It would have been much nicer to see more options that are regularly ignored by US News and World Report.

Finally a (fairly) positive post concerning the college admissions process... It is not as bad as this author often chooses to portray it... It does work, most of the time....

I agree with the other posters about the East Coast bias!

Did you ever check out Lamar University for engineering or advertising? Didn't think so. Until America gets back to realizing that a college degree from practically anywhere is competitive, the college kids and their parents will still be piling on tons of debt to BUY DEGREES. A college degree is worth what you put into it and what you do with it after you get it. In the same breath, Kingsbury writes about the dirty little secrets of why college costs so much -- and then she proves it with this article. Wow, ObamaSpeak all the way around...is this the new language of America: B*LLSH*T????

Kingsbury could have said something intelligent about Yale and Harvard, such as the fact that certain employers (who tend to be in the professional realm, i.e. law, business, etc.) care where you get your degree, but the vast majority of employers out there don't care at all. In other words, a Harvard or Yale degree is NOT AT ALL worth the money if what you plan to do is biology or literature or teaching. The Ivy League degree might be worth something to law firms and corporations who actually believe these degrees indicate a prospective employee is better prepared than someone from moderately inexpensive schools like the University of Washington and Indiana University.

I take it as no coincidence that the comments knocking ivy league schools such as Harvard and Cornell are laden with grammatical and syntactical errors. Whining about education becomes a lot less tolerable when illiterately written.

Also, this conversation should start and end with Canadian Universities. The top three universities in Canada are cheaper than most state schools in the States, and, well, are the TOP THREE universities. That's like a Harvard Education for a TCNJ fee combined with what can only be described as 4 years of pseudo "studying abroad"... (particularly for those studying in a province where another language, say French! Quebecois! is spoken)

Get real. Only UNC (Carolina) will make the final four...

Why only The Naval Academy? The Air Force Academy and West Point offer the same deal.

annieb756 ... you don't have to spend that much money to get into Harvard. several students work hard to get into Harvard. And yea she seems to have bias towards east coast schools. so what? Carolina is an amazing, affordable institution.

I being a Canadian can give some perspective on the university scene. While the education and research is top notch, if you are into sport (while there is some) it is not at the same level of spirit as it is in the states. This might help round out an education for some. Canada has some of the best ranked university in the world in institutions like McGill, Toronto, UBC, Queens, even Western (for all the party peoples). Which brings me to my next point, the drinking age is 19 and 18 in Quebec, and while the booze might be more expensive you can pay for it with all the money you are saving.
I am now a master's student in Buffalo and enjoy some of the privilages of not being nickeled and dimed, but Canada offers top notch education for a much better price, and if you can scam yourself a Canadian address you can pay $5000 a year for that degree at McGill.
Cities like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver are so cosmopolitan and will give you a great perspective of the world.
I would totally look into it!

This article is a comedy because it purports that any college is worth its price. As a college senior about to graduate from a college of high national prestige, I can speak from experience when I advise all bright young high school seniors to attend a cheap in-state public university, keep debt to a minimum, and get awesome grades. I may have a great education, but I paid for it with a pound of flesh.

On a side note- isn't it time to unload the dead weight faculty & PC administration taking up space at most of these prestigious universities. These phone in Profs & Administrators keep costs soaring because they are overpaid and sitting on a rocking chair giving nothing back. Students deserve more than debt when they graduate. Another decaying system that needs to be stripped down and rebuilt!

The US Merchant Marine Academy provides each Midshipman everything the other Academies do, but you will spend a year traveling the world, graduate with a Coast Guard License (so you will actually know how to handle a ship unlike Ensigns commissioned from the Naval Academy) and you have options beyond the military right out of school. It's worth the look.

Select whichever one of these prestigious schools you like. I will still kick your ass and take your lunch money.

Good morning, Sir. Glad to see my Alma Mater made the list. Did yours? Glad to see you're as belligerent as ever. When can we get together and knock down a few shots?

genoftheheart - In reference to your snarky question, the school where I completed graduate studies did. In reference to your question concerning shots, whenever you are buying them and agree to bring attractive females. That is all, carry on.

I have advanced degrees from the two top ranked schools; both are very special places. However, my undergraduate degree is from a good but not spectacular state A & M school, where I fit in socially and for which I was academically prepared. As someone pointed out above, schools like mine are also inexpensive for in-state residents. College should fit the student in terms of social life, adcademic demands and affordability.