BGSU named among “best bang-for-the-buck” colleges

BOWLING GREEN, O.—Washington Monthly magazine has named Bowling Green State University one of “America’s Best-Bang-for-the-Buck Colleges.” BGSU was ranked 147th out of 349 schools and 50th out of 79 national universities, the highest ranking of all Ohio public institutions.

According to the publication, the rankings list “the colleges in America that do the best job of helping non-wealthy students attain marketable degrees at affordable prices.”

To get on the list, colleges had to meet four criteria:

• At least 20 percent of students receive Pell Grants
• Graduation rate of at least 50 percent
• Actual graduation rate must meet or exceed the rate that would be statistically predicted for that school given the number of lower-income students admitted
• Student loan default rate of 10 percent or less

Once that list was compiled, the magazine says it applied the “buck” part of the measure by ranking the schools based on their net price of attendance. Net price is the average tuition that first-time, full-time students from families with an annual income of $75,000 or less actually pay after subtracting the need-based financial aid they receive.