Bowdoin adds another notch in college rankings

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By Lori Valigra

At a time when student debt is at an all-time high, Bowdoin College is the only Maine institution to break into the Top 50 of Money magazine’s “Best Colleges for Your Money.”

The Brunswick-based private liberal arts college ranked 43rd with average student debt of $19,500. That’s partly because 48% of students receive financial aid, which cuts the typical $64,100 tuition to $25,800 on average. The rankings were published in the August issue of Money.

Bowdoin graduates also can expect to earn a decent salary, Money noted, at $48,900 for early career earnings. That’s still well below top-ranked universities like Princeton, with $62,800 in early earnings and a comparable $20,100 in the 2016-17 cost with financial aid, with 62% of that school’s students getting a financial leg up.

Bowdoin’s website notes that only 15% of applicants get into the school, which expects to graduate 93% of its 1,800 students in the 2016-17 academic year.

To make the Top 50, colleges needed to have 500 or more full-time undergraduates and a six-year graduation rate of the median for their type of school (public or private).

Bowdoin also got high marks from Forbes in early July, when it came in fourth in return-on-investment out of a field of 200 colleges.

The Forbes ranking measures successful graduates by the amount they donate to their alma mater. Colby College in Waterville ranked 28th, while Bates College in Lewiston was 64th.

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