Elissa Collopy
eac001@marietta.edu
Recent affordability ranking a “notch in the college’s belt,” alumnus says.
Marietta College was recently ranked one of the nation’s “Best Colleges for Your Money” by College Factual. The website ranked MC the 65th best value out of 1,233 colleges and universities across the U.S.
“As the chief enrollment officer at MC, I am excited about this ranking and it helps validate all of the positive aspects we were already aware of,” Ron Patterson, vice president for enrollment services, said. “We have outstanding students and faculty that make Marietta such an outstanding place, and we are also proud of the many accomplished alumni all over the world who are making a real difference in their communities.”
MC’s tuition averages around $44,000 once fees and room and board are added in.
“I don’t think Marietta is worth the amount of money spent for most majors,” senior Katy Biehl said. “It’s a good school, but it’s unreachable for many families tuition wise.”
Even though the average financial aid package is $27,500 according to the MC website, that leaves around $16,500 for the student and family to cover per year and equals out to around $66,000 after four years of attending MC.
“The higher and higher cost of tuition is a concern,” Jerry Biehl, Katy’s father said.
Jerry Biehl is a 1979 alumnus of MC. With the rising tuition, he said the ranking is all about pride.
“It’s mostly a pride thing rather than a decision-making tool on whether to choose to go to school at MC or not,” he said. “I think the ranking just shows another notch in their belt for the college.”
College Factual said on their website that rankings by themselves are not nearly enough information.
According to collegefactual.com, “Far too many students are encouraged to rely heavily on rankings to make their decision, when they should just be one of many tools students use to determine their best fit.”
College Factual’s rankings are able to be tailored to a specific student’s needs.
College Factual allows students to see just the college rankings by state and region and state specific values (like costs). They also allow students to filter by public versus private, academic ability, or odds of getting in, and the likelihood of getting financial aid. All of these can be based on what students feel is most important.
College Factual’s ranking system is based on acquiring high quality data from many reliable sources like information from the Department of Education, nationally mandated data reporting for institutions and Payscale.
