February 7, 2012 — New College of Florida has been ranked the No. 3 “Best Value Public College in America” for 2012 by The Princeton Review, one of America’s best known education services companies, and USA TODAY, one of the nation’s most widely read newspapers. The No. 1 rated public institution was the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
As part of this year’s rankings, New College was featured on the NBC TODAY Show on Tuesday, February 7, from 7-9 a.m. and in USA TODAY’s February 7 print edition.
“It is a wonderful school, a small school” said The Princeton Review’s Robert Franek on the TODAY show. “It’s the official honors college of the State of Florida. It’s an enormous academic value and a great financial aid value as well.”
This is the fourth consecutive year that the two media entities have teamed up to rank the top public and private colleges in the nation and the fourth time that New College has been among the top three public schools offering students exceptional academics at an affordable price. New College was ranked No. 2 best value public college in 2011 and No. 3 in both 2010 and 2009. The only other Florida state university on the 2012 list is the University of Florida, ranked No. 7.
New College of Florida is the State of Florida’s honors college for the liberal arts and sciences. With a student population of just over 800, New College emphasizes individualized learning for academically talented students from Florida and throughout the United States, as well as some 25 foreign countries. New College is consistently ranked among the top liberal arts colleges in the nation for both academics and value by U.S. News & World Report, Forbes.com, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance and other media outlets.
Tallied by The Princeton Review, the 2012 list features 75 public and 75 private colleges. In each group, the list identifies 10 top schools (see below) in rank order and the remaining in alphabetical order, unranked. View the complete lists on The Princeton Review website at http://www.princetonreview.com/best-value-colleges.aspx, the USA TODAY website at http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/best-value-colleges, and in Best Value Colleges: 2012 Edition, published by The Princeton Review.
The Best Value Colleges for 2012 were selected based upon institutional data and student opinion surveys collected from Fall 2010 through Fall 2011, weighing undergraduate academics, costs and financial aid. The Princeton Review also considered the percentage of graduating seniors who borrowed from any loan program and the average dollar amount of debt those students had at graduation.
For the 2011-2012 academic year, New College’s in-state tuition and fees are $6,060. According to The College Board, average in-state tuition and fees at four-year public colleges are $8,244.
Said Robert Franek, Princeton Review’s Senior VP/Publisher, “We recommend these extraordinary colleges as our ‘best buys’ for 2012 and salute them for all they are doing to keep costs down and/or offer generous aid to applicants with financial need.” Franek added, “We appreciate the deep concerns families have about affording college: among the 12,000 teen and parent respondents to our 2011 ‘College Hopes & Worries Survey,’ 86 percent reported financial aid would be ‘very necessary’ for them to pay for college.”
The Princeton Review Top 10 Best Value Public Colleges for 2012 are:
1. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
2. University of Virginia, Charlottesville
3. New College of Florida, Sarasota, Fla.
4. SUNY – Binghamton
5. University of Wisconsin-Madison
6. College of William and Mary
7. University of Florida
8. University of Georgia
9. University of Washington
10. University of Texas at Austin
The Princeton Review Top 10 Best Value Private Colleges for 2012 are:
1. Williams College
2. Swarthmore College
3. Princeton University
4. Harvard College
5. Rice University
6. Pomona College
7. Washington University in St. Louis
8. Yale University
9. California Institute of Technology
10. Hamilton College
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