Here are the Rankings of the 'Best Value Colleges' for 2017

​There is a raging debate in the country about the value of a college education. Partly, the rising cost of education has prompted this debate. The average cost for a public 4-year college degree is over $80,000 and for private ones are $180,000. The burden of paying for a college education, both for rich and for middle class families, has considerably increased over the past 30 years. Some families find themselves too wealthy to qualify for financial aid, but are too strapped to pay out-of-pocket for college education. This is how federal financial aid works since it is needs based. If you are in this situation, check out our blog that addresses this issue and provides a guide for action.

Plus, given globalization and the slow growth economy worldwide, competition for jobs have intensified. The rising cost of a college education increases debt levels for students, and they struggle to pay the debt for a long time.

How can we empower families to deal with the rising cost of college education? Weighing a college's value has been done using soft metrics like reputation, selectivity and alumni networks. This type of evaluation cedes all power to university admissions algorithms, committees and various pressure groups seeking favors. You may be rich enough to send your kid to the top colleges, but you are not the decision maker.

It's time to challenge the way we look at the college admissions process. We want to empower the students and their families with useful information about the value of their college education.

​We begin with asking questions like, “Which colleges are worth the investment?” instead of, “Which are the best colleges?”

Forbes has published a list of Best Value Colleges of 300 schools that delivers the best return on your investment. The FORBES 2017 Best Value College ranking indexed 300 schools that deliver the best bang for the tuition buck based on tuition costs, school quality, post-grad earnings, student debt and graduation success. The data was collected from the U.S. Department of Education's College Scorecard as well as PayScale, the world's largest salary database. 

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On top of the 'Value List' is the University of California, Berkeley.

Sean Massa spoke with Erin Curley about her experience at UC Berkeley (right). For more videos, you can check out Hillview Prep's 'Thought Leaders' page here.

If you would like to speak with our Thought Leaders, to learn more about their respective colleges, Erin at UC Berkeley, and Sean at Yale, feel free to contact us to set up a call/Skype with them.

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The Top 50 Colleges:

Following is a list to top 50 colleges based on their value. UC Berkeley is the No. 1 Best Value College for the second year in a row, followed by UCLA and Princeton University. There are two more U.Cs in the top 10: UC Irvine and UC Davis. Elite schools like Harvard, MIT and Stanford are also among the top 10.  

Ranking	College Name	Tuition
1	University of California, Berkeley	​$12,972
2	University of California, Los Angeles	$12,705
3	Princeton University	$41,820
4	University of Florida	$6,313
5	Harvard University	$43,938
6	​Massachusetts Institute of Technology	$45,016
7	Stanford University	$45,195
8	University of California, Irvine	$13,179
9	University of California, Davis	$13,896
10	Brigham Young University	$5,000
11	University of California, San Diego	$13,427
12	Duke University	$47,243
13	Yale University	$45,800
14	Rice University	$40,566
15	University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill	$8,336
16	Amherst College	$48,526
17	Cornell University	$47,286
18	Dartmouth College	$48,108
19	California Institute of Technology	$43,362
20	University of Virginia	​$13,208
21	Georgetown University	$46,744
22	University of California, Santa Barbara	$13,865
23	Brown University	$47,434
24	Vanderbilt University	$43,838
25	Wellesley College	$45,078
26	Williams College	$48,310
27	Pomona College	$45,832
28	University of Chicago	$49,380
29	Haverford College	$47,214
30	University of Washington, Seattle	$12,394
31	University of Maryland, College Park	$9,427
32	Claremont McKenna College	$47,395
33	Northwestern University	$47,251
34	University of Michigan, Ann Arbor	​$13,486
35	College of William & Mary	$17,656
36	Emory University	$45,008
37	Barnard College	$46,040
38	Tufts University	$48,643
39	Boston College	$47,436
40	Johns Hopkins University	$47,060
41	University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign	$15,020
42	Colgate University	$48,175
43	Binghamton University, SUNY	$8,620
44	University of Pennsylvania	$47,668
45	University of Notre Dame	$46,237
46	Middlebury College	$46,044
47	Davidson College	$45,377
48	Columbia University	$51,008
49	Hamilton College	$47,820
50	Vassar College	$49,570

The rest of the top 300 schools can be found here.