Columbia College has been ranked in the top 10 in the Best Bang for the Buck Southeast Colleges category of the 2016 Washington Monthly College Rankings
September 1, 2016
Washington Monthly, a D.C.-based magazine known for its annual rankings of American colleges and universities, announced that Columbia College placed No.10 on the list of the Top 100 Best Bang for the Buck Southeast Colleges.
Columbia College was the only South Carolina college to land in the top 10 for this category, which ranks 100 southeast colleges based on factors, such as graduation rate, graduate performance, net price of attendance, and predicted earnings of graduates.
“We are honored to be recognized by such a highly-respected publication, as the Washington Monthly, as a college that is contributing to the public good,” said President Beth Dinndorf. “This is an extraordinary achievement, as the criteria for this ranking exemplify our core values and our vision to be a student-centered, service-oriented private liberal arts college that provides opportunity for all while strengthening our student outcomes.”
For the past four years, Washington Monthly has ranked America’s colleges and universities based on their “Bang for the Buck” — that is, the extent to which they charge students a reasonable price for a quality education that will advance them in their careers. The rankings are based in part on the government’s “College Scorecard” data set, which shows how much students earn 10 years after enrolling at a given college. It also takes into account the percentage of first-generation students the school enrolls.
Paul Glastris, editor in chief of Washington Monthly says, “Instead of promoting schools for how many students they exclude or how ‘prestigious’ they are, we give high marks to institutions that contribute to society, enroll low-income students, help them graduate, and don’t charge an arm and a leg to attend.”
The rankings were released this year in the September/October College Rankings issue of Washington Monthly. You can read the full report at www.WashingtonMonthly.com/college_guide/
Columbia College was also named a 2016 “best value” institution by U.S. News & World Report earlier this year and was awarded the prestigious $100,000 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant to strengthen the centrality of liberal arts education in the college’s undergraduate programs. “Each of these recognitions speak to the transformational work we are doing with our students and the key components of the college’s mission –leadership, diversity and inclusion, and social justice,” Dinndorf concluded.
For more information about Columbia College please visit columbiasc.edu.
