The Princeton Review used their unique “Return-on-Education” (ROE) rating to winnow its list of the 200 colleges for the new book.  ROE measures 40 weighted data points – everything from academics, cost, financial aid, and student debt to statistics on graduation rates, alumni salaries and job satisfaction. The company based its ROE rating on data collected in 2013-14 from surveys of administrators and students at 650 colleges, plus surveys conducted by PayScale.com through April 2014 of alumni of the same schools.  

At a campus celebration for Southwestern’s 175th Charter Day on Feb 5, President Edward Burger announced that the University is the only undergraduate liberal arts institution from Texas to be included on the list.

“We salute and highly recommend Southwestern University and all of our Colleges That Pay You Back schools. They stand out for their excellent academics, impressive career preparation services, and affordability to students with need—via comparatively low sticker prices, generous financial aid, or both,” said Robert Franek, The Princeton Review’s Senior VP/Publisher and lead author of the book.  “Plus their students graduate with great career prospects.”

In the book’s profile of Southwestern University, The Princeton Review quotes Southwestern students who describe the university as “welcoming and personalized” and attribute their joy of learning to “wonderful” professors who clearly “love what they teach.”  The “Career Information” section of the profile lists a high ROE rating score of 86 for Southwestern. The profile also reports PayScale.com figures on salaries of Southwestern alumni, showing the median starting salary as $41,900.

The Princeton Review is a leading academic tutoring, test preparation and college admission services company, headquartered in New York City and is an operating business of IAC.  For more information, visit www.princetonreview.com.