Best Value – Again

Newly released rankings from U.S. News & World Report’s annual Best Colleges Edition give NC State high marks as a national best value – a measure that reflects academic quality and affordability – and point to NC State as an “up-and-comer” that has recently made the “most promising and innovative changes in the areas of academics, faculty, student life, campus or facilities.”

NC State was the fifth highest rated U.S. public university in the best value ranking, known as “Great Schools at Great Prices,” and was among the top 10 public universities listed as an up-and-comer.

NC State was ranked in the top 29 national universities with the lowest debt load for its students upon graduation.U.S. News also highlighted NC State as one of the top 21 universities in the “Writing in the Disciplines” category – a distinction that helps drive student success, according to the magazine.

In discipline-specific rankings, NC State was tied for 16th among public universities, and 30th overall, in undergraduate engineering.

NC State ranked 51st among public universities and 106th overall on the list of top-tier private and public doctoral universities. Rankings and methodologies are available online.

Confirming its status as a leading university making “promising and innovative changes,” this latest ranking follows NC State’s recent announcements of both a record fundraising year and record research expenditures. Within the last week, the university also announced a prestigious National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center funded by an $18.5 million grant from NSF – making NC State the only university in the country currently leading two active NSF ERCs – and an innovative $10 million agreement with Eastman Chemical Company to conduct joint cutting-edge research.

NC State consistently performs well in a wide variety of rankings, including best-value ratings that combine academic quality with affordability – like those appearing in Princeton Review and Kiplinger’s publications.