The long-standing efforts from officials at William Carey University to keep tuition and other costs affordable are being recognized by national publications, as SmartAsset – a New York financial tech company – recently ranked WCU as Mississippi’s “Best Value University.”
WCU president Ben Burnett said the ranking was granted, in part, on the university’s commitment to affordability, quality education and student success.
“We’re very excited, because we’ve been working hard – especially in the last two years – to not only do all we can to make college affordable, but to get our message out to everybody in the state,” he said. “Most people think that a private university costs so much more than going to a public university because we don’t receive state funding.
“But at William Carey, we are as affordable – and sometimes even more affordable – than the public institutions. In addition to our low tuition and high scholarship model, we have provided free textbooks for all our undergraduate students, so we have worked really hard to help Mississippians and others receive a quality education at a price they can afford.”
SmartAsset’s ranking was based on tuition, living cost, scholarship opportunities, student retention and new graduate starting salaries. WCU was followed in the rankings by Mississippi State University, Rust College and Belhaven University.
“To get this honor helps to push our message out, but it’s also a reward to the missions team, our budget team and our provost’s office for making all this happen,” Burnett said.
At the beginning of the last school year, WCU officials increased academic scholarships by 40 percent. In addition, the university did not increase tuition or other fees during that time.
“That helped to create a 10 percent increase in our undergraduate enrollment this past year,” Burnett said. “We don’t have the final numbers for this coming fall, but right now we’re tracking more than that, so we’re very excited about the future.”
SmartAsset was founded in July 2012 by Michael Carvin and Philip Camilleri in New York City. The company publishes articles, guides, reviews, calculators and tools to help people make decisions regarding personal finance.
“In addition to tuition, you have to look at the whole package when you’re looking at the cost of college,” Burnett said. “It’s not just textbooks; it’s the meal plan and the cost of residential fees to live in a dorm.
“When you compare all of that together, we have pretty much everybody beat, so we’re going to stay in the area where we are, as far as our price point. We’ll continue to recruit students who fit our scholarship model and who want to come to a Christian university that has quality education and a quality athletic program.”
