The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley announced Thursday that a new college rating system that highlights economic impact and return of investment ranked the institution as the seventh best public university in the nation.
The ranking comes from Degree Choices, a team of education researchers committed to honest and transparent value assessments of high education institutions to help students decide whether earning a degree is worth the cost, according to the news release.
UTRGV was the only Texas school to make the top 10.
UTRGV President Guy Bailey said the rankings are important because they show the rest of the country that the college is of top value.
“It is encouraging to see more and more college rankings that focus on the value universities provide students, instead of focusing solely on prestige, tradition and other non-economic factors,” Bailey said in a statement. “More students and their families want a high-quality education at an affordable price, and that is exactly what we’re providing at UTRGV.”
Degree Choices also ranked UTRGV in several other categories.
The college placed second in lowest net cost of attendance among public national universities; second in most affordable public national universities; and fourth in best national universities with the lowest student debt.
UTRGV also ranked first in Texas in all three of those categories.
