Ohio University again earned high marks in the national college guides this fall. The Athens campus was rated 25th in the nation — and the best in Ohio — in Money magazine’s annual “Best College Buys” issue, released in August.
And in U.S. News & World Report’s 11th annual edition of “America’s Best Colleges,” Ohio University earned the highest “value added” rating of all 228 “national” universities listed in its rankings. U.S. News says the value added rating “is a measure of the school’s role in the academic success of students as well as of how efficient the school is in playing that role.”
The university also is listed in America’s 100 Best College Buys, 19 97-98, and continues to be featured in the current editions of The 100 Best Colleges For African-American Students and Peterson’s Competitive Colleges.
In Money magazine, Ohio University ranked highest among five Ohio institutions that made the magazine’s top 100. The other schools in the top 100 were Muskingum College (54th), the University of Cincinnati (62nd), Miami University (65th) and Bluffton College (79th). California Institute of Technology ranked first in the nation f or the second year in a row, followed by Rice University in Houston and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
In picking the nation’s best buys in higher education, Money analyzed 16 measures at 1,115 four-year colleges, including graduation rates, entrance exam results, faculty resources, instructional budget, student services budget and library resources. The magazine compared that data with tuition and fees to reach a value rating to rank the top 100 and 50 runners-up.
Pro vost Sharon Brehm said, “It is clear from these rankings that the word to describe Ohio University is ‘value.’ We are a value in terms of high quality for reasonable price, and we add value by providing an environment in which students can maximize their potential and be academically successful.”
America’s 100 Best College Buys, 1997-98, says: “Ohio University offers the resources and advantages of a major university, but remarkably, it maintains the feel of a small college.
. . . If ever there was a college town, Athens, Ohio, is it, bringing small-town atmosphere to a deep intellectual and cultural environment in one of the most historical settings in America.”
