UC Berkeley listed by Forbes as best-value U.S. college

The University of California, Berkeley, has been rated by Forbes as the top best-value college or university in the United States.

According to Forbes' Best Value Colleges list for 2017, UC Berkeley holds the top position for the second year in a row, followed by the University of California, Los Angeles, and Princeton, the University of Florida, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Stanford University.

Forbes ranked 300 colleges and universities across the country altogether, answering just one question: what schools are worth the investment?

The schools were measured in six general categories, which were weighted differently: quality (25 percent), alumni earnings (20 percent), median student debt (20 percent), on-time graduation (15 percent), drop-out risk (10 percent) and recipients of Pell Grant (10 percent), which is a subsidy the U.S. federal government provides for students who need it to pay for college. The total was divided by gross tuition and fees to reach a value.

On the top 10 list for 2017, UC Irvine is eighth and UC Davis ninth.

While Brigham Young University is 10th, UC San Diego is 11th and UC Santa Barbara 22nd among the 300 schools.

"We've tapped into something very interesting here," Forbes wrote in announcing the new rankings. "Private Northeast institutions have lost their monopoly on the higher education marketplace. More than half of the top Best Value Colleges are clustered in the West and five of the 10 are public schools (four from the enviable UC system)."

Forbes, as a business magazine and a media company as well, recognized the UC campuses as "highly active research hives with outstanding programs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)." Endit