Although officials often call an ASU education a value or even a bargain, the University did not rank in the top 100 best values among public universities as ranked by Kiplinger.com, a personal finance Web site.

The list put UA at 96 and NAU at 97.

The scores were based on academic statistics, including freshman SAT and ACT scores and retention rates, student-to-faculty ratios, admission rates and graduation rates. Kiplinger then ranked the universities based on tuition rates and financial aid, said Jane Bennett Clark, senior associate editor of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine.

Though ASU did not place, Clark said it doesn’t necessarily reflect badly on the University.

“ASU came in at 113; it was almost but not quite on the list,” Clark said. “Everything is relative to everything else; you can’t necessarily look at what kinds of numbers Arizona State put up without considering how other schools moved up or down.”

Clark said that ASU’s tuition hurt the University in the rankings.
A written statement from ASU said that the data used by Kiplinger’s was out-of-date and contained a number of errors.

“Kiplinger’s data largely came from the 2007-2008 Peterson’s Survey of Undergraduate Institutions Common Data Set, which has not yet been updated with the most recent information,” according to the statement.

The statement said the Peterson survey reports data from different academic years for different schools.

Clark said it’s true the list’s statistics came from the 2007-2008 data, but her publication disclosed that information.

“As noted in our story, Kiplinger’s bases its college rankings on the most recent criteria available provided to us at our data provider by a university itself,” Clark said. “To now question the accuracy of the data the school provided is disingenuous.”

Officials at NAU and UA would not comment on ASU’s failure to rank among the top 100 on the list but said they were happy about their own institutions’ performances.

UA spokesman Johnny Cruz said he thought it was wonderful that UA was included in the rankings.

“We do believe that UA has good values for its students; we have been recognized in many circles as a top public research university in the country,” he said. “Any recognition of being a good value for our students is gratifying.”

NAU spokesman Tom Bauer said he was not surprised that NAU made the list.

“We’re happy to be on the list,” Bauer said. “We’re not particularly surprised. One of our missions is to offer excellent education at a great value and to be recognized this way kind of demonstrates the public that we are accomplishing what we set out to do.”

Maya Patel, an undeclared sophomore who plans to declare as a secondary education major, said she believes Kiplinger’s should have taken more time to look individually at ASU campuses.

“I’m sure that the Polytechnic campus and Downtown [Phoenix] campus have fewer students, so they probably do more at those campuses and Kiplinger should have taken that into account,” Patel said.

The University, she said, should also take more time to invest in financial aid.

“I think they should help more people who need it,” Patel said. “Parents who used to have the money don’t have it anymore, and I think they should take that into account when they’re giving out financial aid.”

ASU issued a press release Thursday on financial aid in response to the state’s budget crunch. The release said ASU’s financial-aid programs aim to ensure that qualified students are able to attend the University despite any lack of family resources.

Reach the reporter at allison.gatlin@asu.edu.