EASTON, Pa.(www.lafayette.edu), March 3, 2008 — Kiplinger’s Personal Finance singles out Lafayette, Princeton, and Caltech in a feature story about the top values in private colleges and universities in its April issue.

• Read the article.

In January, the author of the article, Jane Bennett Clark, interviewed students, faculty, and administrators, including President Daniel H. Weiss; Provost Wendy Hill; Arlina DeNardo, director of financial aid; and Debra Perrone ’08 (Fair Lawn, N.J.), a civil engineering major.

An excerpt from the article follows:

“Our students understand not only the technical aspects of a problem but the human aspects as well,” says Wendy Hill, the provost. Lafayette students travel to Honduras to work with Engineers Without Borders, where they help create water-distribution systems and nurture coffee production.

Lafayette’s small size – some 2,400 students – and intimate atmosphere create its own fertile ground for learning, says senior Debra Perrone, who knows her professors and their kids. “I have friends at big schools who have to put IDs on the table so their professors know who they are,” says Perrone.

President Daniel Weiss plans to build on Lafayette’s assets, and boost its academic standing, by adding 35 faculty members. “Strong interaction between students and faculty is why people come to places like Lafayette,” says Weiss.

With an endowment of $734 million, Lafayette ranks 98th among the nation’s 100 wealthiest colleges and universities, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers. Those deep pockets allow it to guarantee that at least 75 percent of students’ need is met with grants and to keep the average debt at graduation to a relatively reasonable $18,000. Lafayette also bestows merit scholarships, ranging from $8,000 to $43,010, on 14 percent of its student body.

The article accompanies Kiplinger’s latest listing of top values among private schools. The best-value assessment measures both academic quality and affordability, with quality accounting for two-thirds of the total. Lafayette places No. 16 among the nation’s top 50 values in liberal arts colleges.

The quality measures Kiplinger’s considers in determining best values are admission rate, SAT or ACT scores, student/faculty ratio, four-year graduation rate, and five-year graduation rate. The affordability measures it weights are total costs, cost after need-based aid, need met, aid from grants, cost after non-need-based aid, non-need-based aid, and average debt at graduation.