Virginia's public institutions once again named 'best value'

The Commonwealth is on a roll! Earlier this month, Virginia’s colleges and universities made an impressive showing on Kiplinger's Best Values in Public Colleges for 2010, with 6 schools named among the top 100 in the nation. This week, the TODAY Show and USA Today debuted the Princeton Review Best Value Colleges for 2010, and for the second year in a row, the University of Virginia topped the public college list followed by Virginia Tech, the College of William and Mary, James Madison University, and the University of Mary Washington.

Across the Potomac, the State of Maryland was also represented on the Princeton Review list. Salisbury University, St. Mary’s of Maryland, and the Naval Academy earned three of the highly-coveted places among the top 50 in the nation.

Area private colleges did less well in the ranking. The only local schools appearing among the 50 Best Value Private Colleges were Sweet Briar College and the University of Richmond. Once again, Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania topped the 10 Best Value Private Colleges, with Harvard University and Weslyan College of Macon, Georgia, coming in at two and three respectively.

The Princeton Review selected its 100 “best values”—50 public universities and 50 private colleges—based on surveys of administrators and students at more than 650 institutions. Selection criteria covered academics, costs, and financial aid. “[T]he economic crisis and financial downturn have presented sobering challenges both to families struggling to afford college and to higher education institutions struggling to maintain their programs in the face of budget and funding shortfalls” said Robert Franek publisher of the Princeton Review. “We are pleased to partner with USA Today to present these schools for all they are doing to provide outstanding academics at a relatively low cost of attendance and/or generous financial aid.”

Tuition, fees, and room and board at four-year public institutions jumped 46 percent, from an average of $10,440 in 2000 to $15,210 last year, according to the College Board, which tracks costs. For private four-year institutions, costs rose by 28 percent during the same period. But to counter these increases, “Best Value” colleges provided on average $875 more in grant money per student this year over last. Nine schools on the list don’t even charge tuition, including the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

For UVA, the total cost of attendance for in-state students is approximately $19,112 and $41,112 for nonresidents. Need-based aid distributed to undergrads rose from $37 million in 2003-04 to $59.1 million last year, and 1250 entering students received these funds, according to USA Today. The average student got $9673 in need-based grants and graduated about $19,016 in debt.

College rivalry plays out in local chess championship

As reported earlier, college rivalries come in all shapes and forms. The more traditional football or basketball rivalries are celebrated events attracting huge national audiences. Other rivalries might be less visible, but are competed just as fiercely on fields of play appropriate to the sport.

One such rivalry, while not as long-standing as The Game between Harvard and Yale, is the chess duel between the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and the University of Texas—Dallas (UTD). Capping a near flawless performance over four days of competition play, the UMBC chess team recently captured first place at the Pan American Intercollegiate Championships held at South Padre Island, Texas, soundly beating both UTD and the University of Texas—Brownsville for possibly the biggest win in team history.

Earning bragging rights as champions in the “World Series of College Chess,” the UMBC Retrievers placed ahead of 27 other teams including Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and NYU. “This may be the greatest chess accomplishment for UMBC because it came against the strongest competitive field ever assembled on college chess,” said Alan Sherman, director and founder of the UMBC chess program and associate professor of computer science.

UMBC has now won or tied a record nine Pan-Am titles and is among the best college teams in the country. UTD challenged in the past, winning the championship in 2007 and 2008.

Members of the team include Leonid Kritz ’12 and Sergey Erenburg ’11, who are both grandmasters, and Giorgi Margvelashvili ’12, Sasha Kaplan ’11, and Sabina Foiser ’12. Many players attend UMBC on chess scholarships—up to full tuition plus a housing stipend. They play at least two hours per day in mentally challenging workouts and yet maintain very impressive GPA’s.

In 2008, UMBC got swept into its first-ever run to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. But that was nothing compared to the crushing chess victory over rival UTD, at a school where “chess is king” and "Retrievers are believers."

E-Book offers insider strategies for saving money

The brilliant folks at Cappex recently announced publication of a new e-book entitled, 20 Insider Strategies to Save Money on College NOW, available FREE of charge on the Cappex.com website. The concept is simple: most students and their parents don’t know how to take full advantage of all the money-saving tools available to them and many miss out on financial aid simply because they don’t understand the process. To level the playing field, the book offers insider tips, strategies, tools, secrets, and other ways to help families in the never-ending quest to pay less for college.If nothing else, the book's easy-to-understand guide to financial aid terminology is worth printing out and saving. From there, readers will learn the importance of choosing the right college list, how and when to apply for financial aid or merit scholarships, and what factors should go into making smart decisions about where to attend college. The book is simple, direct, and extremely helpful.“This e-book is ideal for anyone seeking help paying for college. It sheds light on the top approaches,” suggests Chris Long, President of Cappex.com. “Among the approaches are a revealing look at merit scholarships, special strategies for saving on public and private colleges, and getting money that you don’t have to pay back.”

Founded in 2006 by the former CEO of FastWeb, Cappex offers college search tools designed to promote easy access to profiles and reviews of more than 3000 college and universities. A key support for the service is MeritAid.com, which provides Cappex with comprehensive details on about $11 billion in merit scholarships. Both websites are definitely worth investigating, as they offer an incredible wealth of information in addition to the search tools which form the basis of both services. Note that everything is free and that privacy is fully protected for those who choose to register on either website.

College Prowler is now FREE!

I have some great news for fans of The College Prowler. For the first time ever, the entire collection of single-school guides is now available absolutely FREE of charge at www.collegeprowler.com. Students, parents, and counselors can view all the most up-to-date information from all the Prowler guidebooks by entering the website and clicking on “All Schools” under “College Search” on the homepage. That’s more than 45,000 pages of content on more than 270 schools.

High school students naturally seem to gravitate to the slightly irreverent, but always entertaining college reviews contained in the handy little booklets produced by Prowler staff. Recruited from school newspapers and journalism or English departments, student reporters at each campus randomly survey between 75 and 150 of their peers to generate school-specific content including editorial reviews, direct quotes, and a few miscellaneous but helpful statistics. Letter grades (A through F) reflecting student opinion are generated in various information categories including academics, local atmosphere, campus housing and dining, athletics, weather, nightlife, and transportation—to name a few. Some of the reviews can be frank and a little unsettling especially when addressing issues such as substance abuse and sex on campus. Nevertheless, the information tends to be up-to-date, engaging, and to the point. And, readers have access to biographical information on the authors from each school—no more anonymous marketing statements originating directly from the dean’s office, as is often the case with other guides.

Until recently, the complete collection of College Prowler guides was offered online as a subscription for $39.95 per year. Although competition from other campus reviews and guides no doubt contributed to the change of heart, the value is still there. Along with school profiles, the Prowler website also offers college search tools which students should find useful. To make best use of these tools, students will need to register, but the information required is absolutely minimal and the Prowler folks promise not to fill mailboxes with spam generated by registering (like other college search engines).

Individual guidebooks as well as the complete compilation of school profiles may still be purchased on the Prowler website. Experienced high school students know that the little orange books are great for taking along on college visits and confronting tour guides with annoying questions. Prowler is working on expanding the list of schools to 300 by next April and is always recruiting new salaried reporters on campuses already covered to keep their reviews on the cutting edge.