There’s a new set of college rankings on the scene, and the finance educators at College Coach are pretty intrigued by them. Created by Money magazine, the focus of the rankings is on the financial aspects of a college education including how much you might pay at different colleges and how much you might make after graduation. The three categories they use to construct their rankings are quality, affordability, and outcomes. You can read more about their methodology here.
They aren’t perfect—no set of rankings is—and we could write pages about whether or not this system can truly capture the diversity of higher education institutions and the students who are attending them. But those arguments aside, we like these rankings because they should prompt you, the soon-to-be higher education consumer, to ask colleges (and yourself) some good hard questions as you decide whether or not to include them on your application list.
Let’s take it one ranking category at a time: