MU among Best Values

By Elliot Njus

Published Jan. 25, 2008

A personal finance magazine listed MU among its 100 Best Values in Public Colleges, but the school failed to crack the top 50.

In the list published by Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, MU ranked No. 53 for in-state students and No. 57 for out-of-state students.

The rank is an improvement from 2007, when MU rated at No. 57 for in-state students.

According the Kiplinger Web site, schools were ranked based on academics, cost and financial aid. Of 500 schools that submitted data, Kiplinger's selected 120 based on measures of academic quality, such as admission requirements, graduation rates and student-faculty ratios.

Then, they rated and published the top 100 schools based on total cost —including room and board, books and fees — ­and measures of financial aid.

According to the Web site, the rankings only include traditional schools with broad curriculums. The rankings exclude military colleges and schools that do not provide housing.

"We're always trying to determine ways we can keep our cost low," MU spokesman Christian Basi said.

He said the university makes efforts to minimize utility and maintenance costs and keep costs to students low by increasing forms of revenue besides tuition. He said the university has decreased energy use by 19 percent since 1990 while campus space has increased by almost 60 percent.

"We know these efforts to keep costs low directly affects the cost to students," he said.

Basi said Chancellor Brady Deaton's Compete Missouri plan aims to increase MU's

affordability.

"It's a plan that looks at ways to increase revenue without increasing tuition," he said.

Deaton proposed the plan to retain and attract qualified instructors last summer.

Basi said the university also tries to manage costs to students besides tuition.

"I know the bookstore tries really hard to keep textbook prices as low as possible," he said.

Two other Missouri schools made the list. Truman State University ranked No. 26 for in-state and No. 27 for out-of-state, and the Missouri University of Science and Technology, formerly UM-Rolla, ranked No. 67 for in-state students and No. 70 for out-of-state students.

The entire list is available at the Kiplinger Web site.