Wednesday, September 13, 2000

WILMINGTON, NC -- The University of North Carolina at Wilmington is among the 100 best values in public colleges according to the October 2000 edition of Kiplinger's, a magazine specializing in personal finance.

In the article "A Degree of Value," UNCW is ranked the 44th best buy in public higher education. In addition, UNCW is one of the 13 public universities cited as "best for out-of-state students" and "an especially good value for nonresidents."

This is the second major publication to bestow recognition on UNC Wilmington this month. The Sept. 11 issue of U.S. News and World Report ranked UNCW among the top 10 public universities in the South for the third consecutive year.

Kiplinger's determined its list using data that the schools supplied and applying its own formulas in conjunction with data collected by Wintergreen-Orchard House, which gathers statistics each year from more than 1,800 schools, including 589 four-year public colleges and universities. The magazine supplemented Wintergreen's data with statistics from the U.S. Department of Education.

According to Kiplinger's, the top 100 public universities were determined using a variety of quality measures, including graduation rates, how many freshmen return for their sophomore year, student-faculty ratios, how much the college spends per student on instruction and how much it spends to maintain library resources. Once the top 100 were selected on quality alone, they were ranked on a combination of quality and cost measures. Overall, the formula placed greater weight on quality than on cost because "value" is not synonymous with "cheap," according to the magazine.

Copies of Kiplinger's can be purchased at local bookstores.