Kiplinger's Ranks Cortland Among Nation's Top 100 Colleges for Fourth Straight Year

01/05/2010 

For a fourth consecutive year, SUNY Cortland was ranked by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine among its 100 Best Values in Public Colleges, a list of national institutions that combine “outstanding economic value with top-notch education.”
 
SUNY Cortland moved up in the rankings to 56th in the nation for out-of-state students and to 75th nationally for in-state students. Last year, SUNY Cortland was ranked 96th and 89th, respectively, in both categories. In all, 10 SUNY institutions appeared in the Top 100 this year, with Cortland among the three that moved up in the rankings.
 
“I was pleased to learn that Kiplinger’s has now recognized SUNY Cortland four years in a row for the exceptional education we offer to students,” said SUNY Cortland President Erik J. Bitterbaum. “The individual success of our graduates is the true test of a Cortland education, and I have been impressed with our students’ desire to serve their communities and to excel in their chosen professions. We take great pride in being recognized as one of the ‘100 Best Values in Public Higher Education’.”
 
“Kiplinger’s bases its rankings on a combination of academics and affordability,” reported the magazine. “We start with data from more than 500 public four-year colleges and universities, provided by Peterson’s/Nelnet, then add our own reporting. We narrow the list to about 120 schools based on measures of academic quality, including SAT or ACT scores, admission and retention rates, student-faculty ratios, and four- and six-year graduation rates, which most schools reported for the class entering in 2002.
 
“We then rank each school based on cost and financial aid. In our scoring system, academic quality carries more weight (almost two-thirds of the total) than costs.”