Report: La. Tech ranked no. 1 in state for value

Louisiana Tech University has been ranked No. 1 in the State of Louisiana according to MONEY’s 2016-2017 Best Colleges report.

The report, released Monday, evaluated the top public and private higher education institutions in the nation to determine those that offered students the best value and return on investment.  Louisiana Tech earned the state’s highest national ranking at No. 235, followed by Louisiana State University (349), University of Louisiana-Lafayette (521), Tulane University (601) and Loyola University-New Orleans (649).

Louisiana Tech also ranked No. 14 in the nation in lowest estimated price for 2016-2017 for student without aid, and No. 15 nationally in lowest estimated price for 2016-2017 for student with average financial aid.

“Providing our students with an exceptional value and our graduates with an excellent return on their investment in their Louisiana Tech educations is a cornerstone of our commitment and contributions to the citizens of our state,” said Louisiana Tech President Les Guice.  “Our faculty and staff take pride in embracing the responsibility we have to our students to prepare them for success and to position them to become leaders and innovators in their respective fields.
“National recognition such as this from MONEY is encouraging and motivating for our campus community, and shows that we are clearly ‘walking the walk’ when it comes to creating value and graduating quality people and professionals for Louisiana.”

MONEY analyzed and ranked the institutions in the 2016-2017 Best Colleges report using measurements of education quality, affordability and outcomes-based metrics such as graduates’ earnings and “job meaning” which came from PayScale.com’s survey, “Does your work make the world a better place?”  MONEY also measured comparative value by assessing how well students at each school did vs. what’s expected for students with similar economic and academic backgrounds, and the institution’s mix of majors.

To compile the final group of 705 colleges and universities ranked in the 2016-2017 Best Colleges report, MONEY eliminated those institutions that had less than 500 students, graduated less than the median for its institutional category (public or private), those without sufficient data to analyze and institutions that had been identified as in financial difficulty by the U.S. Department of Education or bond ratings agencies.

Princeton University earned the top spot in this year’s Best Colleges list followed by the University of Michigan, Harvard University, Rice University and the University of California-Berkeley and Brigham Young University tying for fifth.

This is the second time in the past week that Louisiana Tech has been recognized nationally for educational quality and superior return on investment.  Last Thursday, Louisiana Tech was ranked among the best higher educations in the nation according to Forbes’ list of America’s Top Colleges 2016.  Forbes ranked Louisiana Tech No. 122 in the nation among all public universities and No. 161 in a list of all research universities.

The complete MONEY 2016-2017 Best Colleges report can be viewed here.  MONEY has also compiled its list of “The Best Colleges in Every State” which can be viewed here.