By Judy Clabes
NKyTribune editor
Northern Kentucky University ranked #1 in the state on SmartAsset’s 8th annual Best Value Colleges study.
This is more good news for NKY’s premier public institution of higher education, as it is celebrating its 54th birthday and a most-successful-ever collaborative funding effort, the Founder’s Day ‘day of Philanthropy,” which raised $528,415 this week. This, from 840 donors.
SmartAsset’s new analysis compared institutions across five metrics, including scholarship, starting salary, tuition, living costs, and retention rate to determine its ranking.
Tuition (in-state where applicable), and student living costs (like room and board), books, supplies, transportation, and other personal expenses, were used to capture the general costs associated with attending each school.
SmartAssets then compared the factors that illustrate a student’s return on investment. Student retention rate shows the percentage of students that are re-enrolling at the institution from year-to-year. The average starting salary shows the potential financial earnings of new graduates when they enter the workforce. Additionally, scholarships and grants show the amount of financial backing colleges are endowing to their student body on a per-person basis.
SmartAssets applied 25% weighting to starting salary, tuition and living costs and gave 12.5% weighting to scholarships, grants and retention rate to come up with the ‘Best Value Colleges’ index.
Schools were ranked in accordance with their score on the index, with the number one school receiving a score of 100 and each additional school’s index value representing how closely they compare.
SmartAsset Advisors, LLC (“SmartAsset”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Financial Insight Technology, is registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as an investment adviser