Northern ranked as one of most affordable colleges

Greatvaluecolleges.net, a website that offers information about how students can get a good college education at a low cost, recently ranked Montana State University-Northern 22nd on its 2017 list of the nation’s top 50 affordable colleges with high acceptance rates.

“MSU-Northern has always sought to provide a quality education at an affordable rate,” Northern Chancellor Greg Kegel said in a statement from Northern. “It gives students the opportunity to go after their dreams and climb the ladder of success. Our practical hands-on programs, beautiful campus, active athletics programs and life-changing internships and employment opportunities make MSU-Northern one of the best values in the nation. We have always felt this about ourselves but this ranking helps to confirm it.”

“What makes our education even more valuable is the return on a student’s investment,” Kegel added. “Our graduates enjoy an extremely high placement rate. In fact, the Montana Department of Labor recently stated that Northern’s graduates have some of the highest starting salaries of any of the four-year institutions in Montana.”

A post on GreatCollegeValues.net said the rankings were based on the colleges with the lowest net costs, the total cost of one year of full-time undergraduate college after financial aid that a student would receive.

Northern has a net cost of $10,523, a 100 percent acceptance rate and a student retention rate of 59 percent, the site said, adding that Northern awards $11 million in scholarships annually and 80 percent of its students receive some form of financial aid.

The ranking also says Northern is one of a few colleges on the list that is a member of the Western Undergraduate Exchange or WUE, an agreement that offers students from the Northern Mariana Islands, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington and Wyoming a reduced tuition  that is 150 percent of its in-state tuition rate.

The post says the rankings were established using the U.S. News and World Report’s list of top 100 colleges and universities with the highest acceptance rates. The list was then narrowed using the National Center for Education Statistics’ College Navigator Database to find the cheapest colleges on that list. Information was also used from the schools’ websites, including admissions information from each school.

“Some of these are small two-year commuter schools, and others are large four-year public universities; and others are large four-year public university systems; all of them put the student at the center of their mission and vision,” the post says.

Student retention was also factored into the ranking because it is important to see whether and why students return to a college or university, the site says.