Posted: Thursday, August 23, 2012 --- 3:38 p.m.

Edgewood College has been named to Forbes Magazine’s Best Colleges List for 2012. This marks the second consecutive year the College has been recognized by Forbes for excellence in teaching and learning.

The Forbes rankings of 650 schools – the top twenty percent of all undergraduate institutions – are prepared exclusively for Forbes by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, a Washington D.C. think tank founded by Ohio University economist Richard Vedder.

According to Michael Noer of Forbes, “The rankings…focus on the things that matter the most to students: quality of teaching, great career prospects, high graduation rates and low-levels of debt. They do not attempt to assess a school’s reputation, nor are they a measure of academic selectivity and we pointedly ignore any metrics that would encourage schools to engage in wasteful spending.”

The rankings are based on five general categories: post graduate success (32.5%), which evaluates alumni pay and prominence, student satisfaction (27.5%), which includes professor evaluations and freshman to sophomore year retention rates, debt (17.5%), which penalizes schools for high student debt loads and default rates, four year graduation rate (11.25%) and competitive awards (11.25%), which rewards schools whose students win prestigious scholarships and fellowships.