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Whitworth University Named a 2018 “Best College Value” by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance

December 22, 2017
Spokane – Whitworth University has been named to Kiplinger’s Personal Finance’s 300 Best College Values for 2018. Introduced in 1998, the rankings now combine public schools, private universities and liberal arts colleges into a single, comprehensive list. The analysis is based on objective measurements of academic quality and affordability, not subjective criteria.


Whitworth earned the No. 89 spot on the magazine’s list of best values among private universities. This is the tenth consecutive year the university has placed in the top 100. Whitworth achieved its ranking based on the university’s high four-year graduation rate of 82.5 percent, low average student debt at graduation, impressive student-faculty ratio of 12:1, excellent on-campus resources and overall great value www.whitworth.edu/affordablevalue

“The return on investment of a college education has never been higher, so it’s more important than ever that colleges provide affordable access to students across the socio-economic spectrum,” says Greg Orwig, Whitworth's vice president for admissions and financial aid. “Whitworth students know they will receive an excellent education, in small classes, taught by professors rather than teaching assistants. And they know they will graduate on time with significantly less debt than the national average for all bachelor’s graduates. These are the outcomes we work hard to provide to students, and it’s icing on the cake that they are the outcomes Kiplinger values in its rankings.”

“Our rankings, which weigh affordability alongside academic quality, are a great resource for students and their parents when sorting through college choices,” says Mark Solheim, editor of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine. “We start with a universe of nearly 1,200 schools and trim the list using measures of academic quality. We then rank the schools based on cost and financial aid data. All 300 schools on our list are worth a look.”

The full rankings are now available online at kiplinger.com/links/colleges and will appear in print in the February 2018 issue of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, on newsstands Jan. 9.

Located in Spokane, Wash., Whitworth is a private liberal arts university affiliated with the Presbyterian church. The university, which has an enrollment of 3,000 students, offers 60 undergraduate and graduate degree programs.

Contacts: 

Greg Orwig, vice president for admissions and financial aid, Whitworth University, (509) 777-4580 or gorwig@whitworth.edu.

Trisha Coder, media relations manager, Whitworth University, (509) 777-4703 or
tcoder@whitworth.edu