The University of Virginia earned top marks for quality, affordability and outcomes in new annual ratings released by Money Magazine on Thursday morning.
UVA is one of just 34 institutions nationwide to receive a five-star rating under the magazine’s new methodology for evaluating colleges and universities. Instead of ranking institutions from highest performing to lowest, as the magazine has done in the past, this year it rated institutions on a scale of zero to five stars based on how they perform on key metrics.
To compile the ratings, Money Magazine evaluated 736 institutions on 26 factors that span three categories: quality, affordability and outcomes. The change in approach is intended to offer a better window into the variety and diversity of high-value colleges and universities across the country. A full explanation of the new methodology is available on the magazine’s website.
In this year’s rating, Money Magazine praises UVA for offering “in-state students a top-notch education at a reasonable price,” and notes that the University “has the highest graduation rate of any public university in the country, at 94%.” Additional key factors in this year’s ratings were UVA’s average time to graduation (4.1 years) and graduates’ average starting salary ($80,600).
