Waynesburg University received several accolades in 2018, with eight awards in just the past six months. The most recent honor came last week when a U.S. News and World report recognized Waynesburg as a top 10 value school among all private and public universities in the northern United States. Due to a “high quality economic programs combined with low costs,” the university ranked sixth in the region. 

For Vice President for Enrollment Shari Payne, the ranking is a sign that the university’s goal to provide their students with the right value for their education is paying off. 

“It’s been wonderful that the university is receiving the recognition that it deserves,” Payne said. “We’ve worked hard over the years to maintain our value proposition, and that’s trying to keep our costs low compared to our competitors, trying to keep it affordable for students. You see that in a lot of different ways.” 

Other awards that Waynesburg received this year include being ranked third regionally in MONEY Magazine’s “Best Colleges For Your Money” list and placing as one of the “best colleges for the money” in College Factual’s “best colleges nationwide.” 

According to Payne, the overall purpose of these rankings is to help students make “more informed” decisions and not just choose schools based on their image. 

“It didn’t use to be 10 or 15 years ago that you decided what school to go to based on what kind of value you were going to get,” she said. “They’d rank you based on your reputation… Now, with society sort of questioning every dollar, ‘what’s the value of a dollar and what worth am I going to get out of my college education… So what these magazines and these publications are trying to do is reframe how we measure colleges and universities against one another.” 

P a y n e s a i d t h a t Waynesburg’s value is measured by a “combination of things.” 

“It’s that we do keep our tuition as low as possible, and we do that through a very efficient budgeting process,” Payne said. “From the top down, everybody is well aware that when we’re spending money, we’re spending student tuition dollars. So we’re careful of how we spend our money here at the university.” 

Another factor is how Waynesburg’s alumni fare f inancially after graduation. As of November 2015, graduates earned $5,214 more than expected on average, which placed Waynesburg in the 92nd percentile nationwide according to The Economist. 

“The value of a bachelor’s degree in a lifetime is well over $1,000,000 in lifetime earnings,” Payne said. “So when you start t h i n k i n g o f a l l t h e s e things, and start thinking about what your choices are, Waynesburg is one of the best choices in the Western Pennsylvania area.” 

While Payne and the university are proud of all the accolades, the goal of Waynesburg having the best value possible is because of the students, with the awards being secondary. 

“When we make decisions on how to run the university, what we’re going to charge for tuition, how we are going to spend the money, we’re not thinking about money magazine or U.S. News and World Report,” Payne said. “So while we’re glad we’re getting the rankings as a byproduct of what we’re doing, we do it because it’s the mission of our institution. It’s for the betterment of our students.”