BY DANTE FUOCO

In print | Published January 21, 2010

It looks like Swarthmore is still on top — for the second straight year the college has been named the “Best Value Private College” by The Princeton Review and USA Today. Senior Vice President and Publisher of the Princeton Review Robert Franek said that a college’s “value” is determined from student and administration surveys that, unlike some other Princeton rankings, rate a variety of factors in three areas: academics, cost and financial aid.

“Swarthmore provides an excellent education for what we charge and it is worth every penny. We may also be affordable for students who might not consider Swarthmore based on sticker price alone,” said Jim Bock ’90, dean of admissions and financial aid, of the college’s ranking in an e-mail.

This recent ranking is in addition to Swarthmore being ranked as first for “Great Financial Aid” last August in The Princeton Review’s “The Best 371 Colleges.”

When asked how he would hope that prospective students would look at the ranking, Bock said, “Some of the most expensive schools may be the most affordable in the end. A liberal arts education has never been more critical and important, and one of the best places to receive such an education is Swarthmore College.”

Franek echoed Bock’s statement, noting that often a school with a lower “sticker price” may actually end up costing more than a seemingly more expensive school like Swarthmore.

Through surveys collected for a Princeton Review book called “College Hopes and Desires,” Franek found that families’ biggest concern was that a student would get into a first choice school without being able to afford it. He added that this will often deter them from applying to a school like Swarthmore.

“So many student and families are so obviously making mistakes,” Franek said, referring to forgoing applications to costlier schools. “That is simply tragically flawed.”

For “The Best Value Private College” top-10 list, Swarthmore was listed in front of elite universities like Harvard, Yale and Princeton as well as peer liberal arts colleges like Williams, Amherst and Wellesley.

Bock said that what he liked “about this ranking in particular is that all private colleges and universities are grouped together, so you can have a small liberal arts college followed by an Ivy, followed by a small women’s college, as in the current ranking.”

According to the USA Today website, The Princeton Review collected data on 30 factors across three areas — academics, cost and financial aid — though surveys from both students and administrators at 650 colleges and universities across the country.

“I … like that student surveys were utilized,” Bock said. “I believe it gives the ranking a bit more credibility.”

Student surveys drove the rating in the academic area. It covered “such issues as professors’ accessibility and class sizes, as well as institutional reports about student-faculty ratios and percent of classes taught by teaching assistants,” the USA Today website said. The financial aid rating was based on both school-reported data and student surveys. Franek said that the ratings of these different factors can be found on The Princeton Review’s online database.

And while Bock said that “it’s nice to be recognized on a national level from time to time,” he stressed that “®ankings should be a starting point and not an ending point for comparison and exploration for students.”

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