In this year’s Forbes magazine rankings of the country’s best values in higher education, Elmhurst College placed ninth among the top 10 schools in Illinois, and in the top 13 percent of colleges and universities nationally.
The Forbes rankings, called “America’s Best Value Colleges 2017: 300 Schools Worth the Investment,” acknowledge that for many students and their families, the cost of attending a particular four-year college or university is as much of a deciding factor as the quality.
The Best Value rankings highlight where prospective college students can get “the most quality for each tuition dollar spent,” and whether a particular college will deliver a meaningful return on their investment.
Forbes’ 2017 Best Value College ranking selected 300 schools nationally—out of the approximately 2,360 four-year colleges and universities in the U.S.—that deliver the best bang for the tuition buck. To develop the list, Forbes used data collected from the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard as well as PayScale, the world’s largest salary database. The rankings formula was based primarily on school quality, alumni mid-career earnings, student debt levels and on-time graduation success, as well as dropout risk rates and enrollment figures for Pell Grant recipients.
Only 11 colleges and universities from Illinois made the list. Aside from Elmhurst, the list included the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, the University of Illinois (the Urbana-Champaign and Chicago campuses), Loyola University, Illinois Wesleyan University, DePaul University, Bradley University, Wheaton College and Illinois State University.