Payscale.com ranks UW Bothell best value in college education in the state

University of Washington Bothell ranks among the top colleges and universities in the nation -- and first in the state -- in a listing that compares their return on investment.

PayScale.com ranks UW Bothell No. 42 for in-state students and No. 76 for out-of-state students. (Public institutions are ranked twice because of the difference in tuition for in-state and out-of-state tuition, but private institutions are ranked once because in- and out-of-state students pay the same.)

There is no school, public or private, in the state of Washington that ranks higher than UW Bothell.

“This is another ranking that not only shows the quality of University of Washington Bothell graduates but the value the University adds to students and to the communities where they spend their productive careers,” said Chancellor Wolf Yeigh.

PayScale.com is a Seattle-based company that analyzes salary databases to provide employees and employers with compensation information. Its data are used as part of other rankings, such as Money magazine’s. PayScale’s best value college report is online.

UW Bothell

The ranking is a factor of expected costs, expected 20-year return on investment and graduation rate. With college graduates burdened by significant loan debts, students, their parents and policymakers need to understand the value of the college education in the job market, PayScale says.

The University’s students who receive loans graduate with an average debt of $20,600. That’s about $9,000 less than the national average, according to a report by the Institute for College Access and Success. But half of UW Bothell students graduate with no debt.

Total student loan debt in the United States has topped $1 trillion, and some underemployed grads are waiting longer to get married and buy a house, PayScale says.

This new ranking is supported by recent figures from the state Education Research and Data Center. The figures showed that a year after leaving the University of Washington Bothell, bachelor’s degree graduates are earning more on average than those from all other public colleges and universities in Washington.