6 Tennessee Colleges Among Best Value Schools In U.S.

With the rising cost of college tuition and the enormous amount of student debt most graduates take on, prospective college students predictably want to get the most for their money. For students planning to enroll this year, a new list ranks the best value colleges in the country for 2018 and six of those colleges are right here in Tennessee.

Vanderbilt ranked in the top 10 of the best value colleges list with an average debt at graduation of 24,122. The total cost per year to attend: $64,542.

The list is compiled by Kiplinger, a personal finance and business forecasts publisher. Kiplinger notes that nationally over the past 20 years, tuition for in-state students attending public four-year universities has gone up 82 percent when adjusted for inflation. Tuition hikes have been less dramatic at private, non-profit four-year colleges, but still jumped 59 percent.

Student-loan debt has also gone up while average earnings of recent college graduates have remained relatively flat, according to Kiplinger. The publication's annual list of the 300 best value colleges and universities weighs quality with affordability, giving students a resource to see where they'll get the most for their investment.

Kiplinger defines value as "a high-quality education at an affordable price."

The other Tennessee institutions that are among 300 in the country that rank as "best value colleges" are (with ranking listed in parenthesis):

Rhodes College (70); Average debt at graduation: $25,859

Sewanee: The University of the South (78); Average debt at graduation: $24,431

Union University (217); Average debt at graduation: $31,181

University of Tennessee (246); Average debt at graduation: $24,420

Belmont University (271); Average debt at graduation: 31,020

To come up with the rankings, Kiplinger looks at admission and graduation rates, academic support, tuition costs and financial aid, average student debt and the salary graduates might earn a decade after they graduate. (You can read more about Kiplinger's methodology here.)

The top 10 colleges on the list are:

1. Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
2. Davidson College, Davidson, North Carolina
3. Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania
4. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusett
5. Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
6. Pomona College, Claremont, California
7. Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee
8. Rice University, Houston, Texas
9. Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia
10. Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts

You can see the full list here.

Image of Vanderbilt University campus via Shutterstock