Kiplinger Personal Finance magazine has again named UNC-Chapel Hill the “best value” in U.S. higher education. In fact, six campuses in the UNC system made the top 100 “best value” universities this year. The publication commented that a Chapel Hill student receiving the typical amount of financial aid pays $2,799 per year for tuition and fees — about the cost of a ?50-inch plasma TV.?
Before North Carolinians start gloating, they should consider that relatively low tuition at North Carolina?s public universities means high costs for the taxpayer.
Second, the ?quality? part of the ranking does not measure the quality of education; it primarily measures the caliber of the students going in and the level of expenditures by the state.
Although Kiplinger?s doesn?t reveal its methodology this year (possibly due to a computer error), it gave the basics in its 2003 listing. The ranking starts by identifying the top 200 public universities based on the SAT scores of incoming students. Thus, it measures student quality, not the quality of education students get once they arrive. So does another criterion, the university?s admissions rate (percent of applicants accepted).
Beyond that, most of the factors are ?inputs?: student-faculty ratio (not necessarily a guide to how much the faculty are teaching), dollars spent on per-student instruction, dollars spent on libraries, and the percentage of faculty with Ph.D.s (or the highest degree in their field). To my mind, the only real measure of educational success identified by Kiplinger is 4- and 6-year graduation rates.
UNC schools may cost students less than other public colleges, but what students actually receive remains something of a mystery. For a sobering look at what colleges are failing to provide, see George Leef’s commentary, “The Skills College Graduates Need.”
