Furman Ranked Among 2009 Best Values by Two Publications
January 12, 2009
GREENVILLE, SC – January 12, 2009 – Furman University has been named to two recent best value lists by organizations that rank schools to provide parents and students some of the tools they need for picking a college.
Furman is the only South Carolina school to make the Princeton Review’s list of 100 Best Value Colleges for 2009, and the university also made Kiplinger’s Top 50 Values in Liberal Arts Colleges.
Last spring, Consumers Digest magazine ranked Furman the fifth best value among the nation’s private liberal arts colleges.
The Princeton Review is an educational services and test-prep company that compiles annual bang for your buck studies of public and private colleges and universities. The company joined with USA Today to publish this year’s results online and in the nation’s top-selling newspaper.
Compiled from data provided by schools as well as surveys of students and administrators, the study picked the University of Virginia as No. 1 among public colleges and Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania as No. 1 among private colleges. The study ranked the top 10 public and private Best Values with the remaining schools in each category listed alphabetically.
Kiplinger, the personal finance and business forecasting company, ranks Furman 45th among liberal arts colleges. Wofford College is the only other South Carolina school to make the liberal arts list (ranked 42nd).
However, three South Carolina schools are in Kiplinger’s Top 100 Colleges for 2009 including Clemson University (34th), the University of South Carolina (60th) and the College of Charleston (70th).
Ben Zelevansky, who directs data analysis for the Princeton Review, told USA Today that in tough economic times, schools on the Princeton Review list found ways to strike a balance between providing a top-notch education and giving top value for the money invested in that education.
You can still get a solid education at a good value from a school that didn’t make our list, but the schools on our list really go above and beyond, he told the newspaper.
Tuition at Furman during the 2008-09 academic year is $34,048.
The results of the Princeton Review study are online at www.PrincetonReview.com/bestvaluecolleges and at USA Today’s website, www.BestValueColleges.usatoday.com with a database and interactive features.
Go to http://www.kiplinger.com/tools/privatecolleges/ataglance_lib_arts.html for the Kiplinger rankings.
