"Best College Values" include Ivy League campuses

Kiplinger's Personal Finance today issues its "Best College Values" list — and for the first time since the magazine created the list in 1998, it has combined the public and private lists into one. The top schools aren't necessarily the most affordable, but the magazine says the four-year institutions that rise to the top are measured by "academic quality," including incoming students' SAT and ACT scores, admission and retention rates, student-faculty ratios and four-year graduation rates.

The magazine also ranks colleges by cost and financial aid — but academic quality carries more weight in the ratings than cost, the magazine says.

Here's a gallery of the Top Ten: