University of Lynchburg has been ranked a top college in Virginia for return on investment. AffordableCollegesOnline.org (AC Online) recently launched a new ranking: “AC Online: Highest Return on Investment Colleges in Virginia,” which identifies the 28 colleges in Virginia with the greatest lifetime return on investment. Students who graduate from these colleges earn more over their lifetimes, on average, than graduates from other Virginia institutions.
LC ranked 14th in the Virginia rankings.
“These are important lists for prospective students to consider,” says AC Online founder Dan Schuessler. “We’ve sifted through comprehensive data sources to find colleges and universities in Virginia that offer a high quality education with consistent, long-term payoffs in the workplace.”
AC Online developed the following criteria for consideration as a “High ROI College”:
• Fully accredited institution
• Either public or private
• Four-year, degree-granting institution
• ROI according to PayScale’s 2013 College Value Report.
AC Online compiled a list of schools meeting these criteria by using the following data sets:
• NCES, the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education. It provides consistent, reliable, complete, and accurate indicators of education status and trends.
• IPEDS, the primary federal source for data on colleges, universities, and technical and vocational postsecondary schools in the U.S.
• Carnegie Classification, a framework widely used in the study of higher education, both as a way to represent and control for institutional differences, and also in the design of research studies to ensure adequate representation of sampled institutions, students, or faculty.
• Payscale.com, the premier salary data collection organization.
“We aim to educate so that potential students are aware of their options for obtaining a degree and, most importantly, for paying for one,” Schuessler said.