News & Announcements Blog / News

Babson Ranked Top College for Value by SmartAsset

Babson College

SmartAsset, a New York technology company focused on personal finance, has ranked Babson College No. 4 for Best Value in Massachusetts, above WPI, Tufts University, Boston College, and more.

Babson is ranked fourth only to Massachusetts Maritime Academy (No. 3), Harvard (No. 2), and MIT (No. 1).

Babson is also ranked No. 4 for average starting salary. Its graduates average $60,700 in their first year out of school—nearly $13,000 more per year than the state average, and $16,000 per year more than the national average.

Methodology

SmartAsset looked at five factors to determine the best value colleges and universities: tuition, student living costs, scholarship and grant offerings, retention rate, and starting salary.

To capture the true cost of attending a school, SmartAsset included the tuition (using in-state tuition for public schools where applicable), student living costs (including room and board, books, supplies, transportation, and other personal expenses) and the average scholarships and grants offered to students of the school.

To capture what students get in return, the company looked at student retention rate (the percent of students that re-enrolled at the institution the following year) and the average starting salary.

SmartAsset weighted starting salary, tuition, and living costs at 25 percent; and scholarships/grants and student retention rate at 12.5 percent. With that ranking, an index was created in which the number one school was assigned 100.

Sources: 2014 National Center for Educational Statistics, 2016 Payscale, 2014 College InSight