Campus rated 'great school at a
great price'

Campus tied at 46 on U.S. News list

by Steven Beeber, News Office staff

  .S. News & World Report has ranked the campus in the top 50 nationwide in a listing called "Great Schools at Great Prices." The University was tied for No. 46 in the category with Brandeis, the University of Miami and Vanderbilt. The California Institute of Technology topped the list.

     The ranking factored in the ratio of quality to price, availability of need-based financial assistance and the percentage of total costs covered by financial aid. According to the report, 34 percent of UMass undergraduates received need-based grants during the 1999-00 academic year.

     The list appears in the magazine's annual guide, titled "America's Best Colleges," which hit newsstands Tuesday.

    "One of the University's strengths is that it offers exceptional opportunity at a great price, so this ranking pleases us immensely," said Kay Scanlan, interim assistant vice chancellor for Communications and Marketing. "A top 50 ranking confirms that our efforts are paying off, and that our message is getting through."

     Scanlan also pointed out that U.S. News & World Report's year 2001 rankings of "America's Best Colleges" listed UMass among the top 50 "Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs" nationwide. "This strong showing by the engineering program is further testament to the quality of education available at UMass," Scanlan said.

     In March, the College of Engineering was ranked number 49 out of a total of 219 graduate engineering programs nationwide in U.S. News & World Report's year 2001 rankings of "America's Best Graduate Schools."

    As last year, the University remains on U.S. News & World Report's list of the top 50 public national universities. The campus tied for 47th place on the list with Florida State, New Hampshire, Vermont and Washington State. Connecticut ranked No. 38.

    The magazine said there are 228 "national universities," schools that offer a full range of undergraduate majors, plus master's and Ph.D. degrees, and emphasize faculty research. The top ranked public institution on the list is the University of California-Berkeley.

     The U.S. News & World Report rankings are available online (www.
usnews.com).