UNC Asheville named a ‘best buy’ in Fiske Guide to Colleges

Press release from UNC Asheville:

UNC Asheville Named a “Best Buy” in Fiske Guide to Colleges

UNC Asheville has been named to the very select list of “Best Buy” universities in Fiske Guide to Colleges 2015, which will be released for sale on July 5. The guide, created by former New York Times education editor Edward Fiske, calls UNC Asheville “one of the top educational bargains in the country.”

Covering schools in the U.S., Canada and the U.K, the Fiske Best Buy list includes only 22 public and 22 private colleges, “noted for quality academic offerings and affordable cost.” Joining UNC Asheville on this exclusive list are four other North Carolina schools: UNC-Chapel Hill, N.C. State University, Warren Wilson College and Elon University.

“The quality of teaching at UNC Asheville is superb,” said one senior quoted in the Fiske guide. “I specifically chose this institution for the faculty, their desire to mentor students, and for the quality of teaching.”

For the 11th consecutive year, UNC Asheville’s Environmental Studies Program was named to the Fiske guide’s list of pre-professional programs with unusual strength in preparing students for careers.

“Students can take advantage of Asheville’s strengths as a global source of information for weather forecasting and as a center of digital imaging, and, of course, fine arts and studio crafts,” says the Fiske guide. “Professors are given high marks and noted for their passion and experience.” The guide also notes the quality of UNC Asheville’s on-campus community life and food, its relaxed social life, and pre-orientation wilderness trips to the Blue Ridge Mountains that build friendships incoming freshmen.

The Fiske guide concludes that UNC Asheville is “a place to get the kind of liberal arts education usually associated with private colleges—but for a lot fewer greenbacks.”

Fiske’s assessment echoes many other prominent college rankings. UNC Asheville is ranked seventh in the nation among public liberal arts colleges by U.S. News & World Report, which also lists the university among those where students graduate with the least amount of debt. UNC Asheville has been named a “Best Value College” for eight consecutive years by The Princeton Review, and is ranked as a “best value” by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance and Forbes magazine.