ten Best Buys When Searching for a Public College Education

The high cost of college is high indeed…with the one-year cost of college tuition, fees, room and board and books reaching $50,000 at the nation's most elite private universities, choosing a school that offers the very best education for the most reasonable price makes college grad kind of sense!

So,  where’s the best bang for the book learnin’ buck? . The Princeton Review and USA Today have identified the nation's "best value" colleges--the schools and he number one "best value" private college for 2012 is Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, while the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is the "best value" public college.  But the North West represents in the top ten with the University of Washington coming in at number nine. Go Huskies!

Top 10 best value public colleges and universities:

1. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, North Carolina)
2. University of Virginia (Charlottesville, Virginia)
3. New College of Florida (Sarasota, Florida)
4. State University of New York at Binghamton (Binghamton, New York)
5. University of Wisconsin (Madison, Wisconsin)
6. College of William and Mary (Williamsburg, Virginia)
7. University of Florida (Gainesville, Florida)
8. University of Georgia (Athens, Georgia)
9. University of Washington (Seattle, Washington)
10. University of Texas at Austin (Austin, Texas)