For the second consecutive year, Georgian Court University, Lakewood, is ranked as a “Best Bang for the Buck” by editors and researchers at Washington Monthly magazine.

GCU is #21 on the magazine’s list of more than 400 schools in the northeast. The new accolade, which is part of Washington Monthly’s annual College Guide, comes just weeks after Georgian Court was named among MONEY® magazine’s “Top 50 Schools That Add the Most Value.”

“As policymakers and the public raise questions about the costs of college, the Washington Monthly ranking is another indication that higher education should be viewed as an investment, and that a Georgian Court education is an exceptional value as an investment,” said GCU president Dr. Joseph R. Marbach.

Researchers at Washington Monthly considered a range of factors in choosing schools for its “Best Bang for the Buck” list, including student loan default rates; graduation rates; the percentage of students with lower incomes who qualify for federal Pell grants; and the net price to attend the college.

Increasingly, more third-party organizations are expanding their methodology when ranking colleges and universities.

“There is a recognition that rankings based on prestige don’t tell the whole story,” said Dr. Robert Kelchen, one of the report’s editors and an assistant professor in Seton Hall University’s Department of Education Leadership, Management and Policy. “They do a good job of telling students how much a college has, but not how well a college does for a school that enrolls students similar to them.”

Overall, the “Best Bang for the Buck” editors said the list reflects “colleges that are doing the best job of helping non-wealthy students attain marketable degrees at affordable prices.”