America's Best Colleges

ACU is only Texas private school in 'America's 100 Best College Buys'

For immediate release
Sept. 15, 2003

According to "America's 100 Best College Buys" Abilene Christian University is the best buy among private colleges and universities in Texas.

The independent organization Institutional Research and Evaluation, Inc. publishes "America's100 Best College Buys" each year and has included ACU every year since its inception seven years ago. This year, ACU was the only private institution in Texas to make the list.

Other Texas schools were Texas A&M University, Texas A&M at Galveston, Texas Tech University, University of North Texas and University of Texas at Austin. Despite being the only private school, ACU's cost was highly competitive with the out-of-state tuition costs of the other five public schools. ACU's cost for tuition, room, board and fees was less than the out-of-state cost for the University of Texas at Austin and only a few hundred dollars away from the out-of-state costs for most of the other schools.

Schools listed among "America's 100 Best College Buys" must provide "the highest quality in education at the lowest cost," according to the report.

Institutional Research and Evaluation is an independent research and consulting organization specializing in the recruiting and retention of students for institutions of higher education. The organization also publishes "America's Best Christian Colleges," in which ACU has been included for the past seven years as well. This year's "America's Best Christian Colleges" is expected to be released later this month.

Out of State Cost Comparison

Among the "America¹s 100 Best College Buys" data were these comparisons of cost (based on 30 semester hours), which include tuition, fees, room and board for 2003-04:

    Abilene Christian University        $18,370
    Texas A&M University                   $18,096
    Texas A&M at Galveston              $17,035
    Texas Tech University                  $17,540
    University of North Texas             $16,680
    University of Texas, Austin           $19,010

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