The U.S. News & World Reports college rankings, released Friday, place UNC-CH fifth in terms of students accumulating the least amount of debt upon graduation from doctoral universities.
Topping the low-debt list is Yeshiva University in New York. The rankings show that students at Pepperdine University in California accumulate the most debt.
UNC-CH is also ranked as the best value among all national public institutions, according to Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, a financial planning and informational publication.
The University of Virginia falls directly behind UNC-CH in terms of value, with the University of California-Berkeley in the third spot. UNC-CH officials attribute the University's high score to the vast amount of grant money available to students, which often makes student loans unnecessary.
The University has enough grant money available through scholarships and student aid to meet 65 percent of need for students who send in their applications by the March deadline, said Shirley Ort, UNC-CH director of scholarships and student aid.
She said despite rising tuition, UNC-CH is still an excellent buy among its peer institutions. "Even though tuition has gone up, it's still modest in comparison with peer institutions of similar value," Ort said.
The UNC-system Board of Governors approved in March an 8 percent tuition increase for all in-state students and a 12 percent increase for all out-of-state students -- totals of $186 and $1,478 for UNC-CH students, respectively. Both chambers of the N.C. General Assembly have approved the increases.
Ort said UNC-CH's financial accessibility is not compromised by tuition increases in large part because the University is able to counter them with grant money. "The average indebtedness of a senior who borrowed during the 2000-01 school year is about $11,100," Ort said. "The average nationally among all institutions is about $18,000. For four-year public (universities) it is about $16,000."
Although the state is facing a $2 billion budget shortfall, a tentative higher education budget proposal includes $4.5 million in funding for student financial aid.
