The university makes its second consecutive appearance in The Princeton Review's “America's Best Value Colleges” guidebook, which hit newsstands this week.

Cover of the 2008 America's Best Value Colleges guidebook

The appearance in the 2008 edition of the guidebook designates us as one of the nation's best college educations for the cost. The guide profiles 165 colleges with excellent academics, generous financial aid packages and relatively low costs based on financial statistics and student interviews. It includes 90 public and 75 private colleges.

"This designation reflects our commitment to providing students authentic access to higher education," says President Bob Bell. "It emphasizes our ability to offer high quality education at an affordable cost.

"The student surveys and university statistics reinforce what our alumni say about attending TTU; students are given personal attention and prepared for life-long success here," says Bell.

The America's Best Value Colleges guidebook is distributed annually by Princeton Review and Random House publishers.

The Best Value College seal

“We considered over 30 factors to identify our ‘best value’ colleges,” says Robert Franek, vice president of publishing for The Princeton Review. “They covered four areas: academics, tuition (the sticker price minus average amount students receive in scholarships and grants), financial aid (how well colleges meet students’ financial need), and student borrowing.”

Academic factors considered include the quality of students as measured by admissions credentials, as well as how the students themselves rate their academic experiences through a survey.

Cost and financial aid data are based on the price of each school's tuition, required fees, and room and board minus the average gift aid (scholarships and grants) awarded to students. Students are also surveyed about how happy they are with the financial aid packages and the service they receive at the schools' financial aid offices.

This year’s TTU entry features a “Bang For Your Buck” section, complimenting the number and variety of scholarships awarded here.

Princeton Review's assessment of TTU as a "best value" is echoed by the university also being included in "America's 100 Best College Buys," an annual report released by Institutional Research & Evaluation Inc. Our Distance MBA program also ranks as one of the Top 10 Best Buys in the country, according to GetEducated.com in its latest release of "Top 25 Best Buys for Online MBA Degrees."

In the past year, The Princeton Review also listed TTU as a 2007 Best Southeastern College, while U.S.News & World Report listed the university as one of the Top Public Schools in the South in its ranking category for 2007.