WCU on Money Magazine’s list of best colleges

WEST CHESTER » West Chester University was recently ranked as one of the 711 best-performing colleges in the nation by Money Magazine.

“While focusing on ratings is not an institutional strategy, it is affirming to have WCU’s academic excellence and its dedication to student success recognized nationally,” said a spokesperson for the university. “Prospective students and parents have been interested to see the university’s presence in Money Magazine, U.S. News and Kiplinger’s Best Values. Generations of graduates and their stories of success are, however, what will always matter most to those of us at WCU.”

Ranked 397, the school was touted for its exceptional value and quality of education. Business, health professions, and education were listed as some of the most popular majors and a

key to the university’s success. The college was also noted for its diverse and innovative programs such as the Healthy Aging Consortium, the Amazon Center for Environmental Education and Research, the Mind/Body Institute, the Frederick Douglass Institute, and the Poetry Center.

West Chester University is the largest of the 14 institutions comprising the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. About 16,000 students are currently enrolled, and the university offers over 100 undergraduate and graduate degrees.

Money Magazine consulted with the American

Institutes for Research and College Measures to determine education quality, financing, and value. The result is “a new, uniquely practical analysis” that used 27 factors in three equally weighted categories to evaluate the institution.

The three categories include:

Quality of education

Graduation rates and faculty-student ratio were several factors considered. For the first time, the researchers examined institutions’ financial troubles (20 percent of the category score), reasoning that “financial difficulties can affect the quality

of education, and a growing number of schools are facing funding challenges.”

Affordability

The net price of a degree (30 percent of the category score) is “the estimated amount a typical freshman starting in 2017 will pay to earn a degree, taking into account the college’s sticker price; how much the school awards in grants and scholarships; and the average time it takes students to graduate from the school, all as reported to the U.S. Department of Education.” Debt and student loan repayment also figured in the score.

Outcomes

For the first time, the researchers took into account socio-economic mobility index (20 percent of the category score). “We included new data provided by the Equality of Opportunity Project that reveals the percentage of students each school moves from low-income backgrounds to upper-middle class jobs by the time the student is 34 years old.” Other factors in the category included graduates’ earnings (12.5 percent) as reported by alumni to PayScale.com; College Scorecard 10-year earnings (10 percent); and the estimated market value of alumni’s average job skills (10 percent). Based on a Brookings Institution methodology, we matched up data provided by LinkedIn of the top 25 skills reported by each school’s alumni with Burning Glass Technologies data on the market value of each listed skill.”

This is not the first time West Chester University has received excellent ratings. US News World Report ranked it 61st in a list of Best Regional Universities in the North. Kiplinger’s Best Values ranked it 99th in Best Values in Public Colleges and 281st among all colleges.

PETE BANNAN — DIGITAL FIRST MEDIA Money Magazine has listed West Chester University among 711 of the nation’s best-performing colleges.