Money magazine: These Are the 727 Best Colleges in America

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1. These lists to some degree are meaningless

For example Tennessee Tech at 404 is great value. A small school with a great engineering program. I worked with many graduates from that school, and I would not have hesitated to send my engineering daughter to that school if we had remained in Tennessee (she went to Iowa State).

U of Wisconsin - La Crosse (208) vs. -Platteville (233). While UW Lacrosse is a good school, Platteville is another excellent small state university engineering school that should have been rated higher.

Unless you are an exceptional student, I would strongly recommend sticking with your state schools. Also look beyond the flagships in some case (above two examples - I would send my kid to either one of them over UT-Knoxville or UWisconsin).

The thing I would emphasize is to stay away from the for profits in general. My daughter had a friend who lived in La Crosse and was taking accounting courses through a for profit. UW-LaCrosse has an excellent accounting program that would take her further for far less money.