Kiplinger's rates UCI 20th among best values in public universities

UC Irvine is 20th on Kiplinger’s latest list of the 100 best values in public universities, released Monday, Jan. 4. The magazine bases its rankings on academics and affordability, using Peterson’s data on more than 500 public four-year colleges and universities supplemented by its own reporting. The list is narrowed to about 120 schools with the highest academic quality – as measured by test scores, admission and retention rates, student-faculty ratios, and four- and six-year graduation rates. Institutions are then ranked according to cost and financial aid factors. In the scoring system, academic quality carries more weight than cost (almost two-thirds of the total).