10 best colleges for out-of-staters

I agree with most people's opinions so far. I went to a small state school that does not get much recognition and graduated in engineering. In my professional career (6 years with a major oil/gas company) I have never been held back by the school I attended. I don't believe that the institution you graduate from means much in the real world. If you can't work and perform it doesn't matter what school you went to. It might help you get that first interview but beyond that it's up to you. I work with people from MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, and great international schools and most of the best and brightest are farm kids with degrees from small state schools (I did not grow up on a farm and am not biased). Try working alongside someone who enjoys getting up at 4 am and thinks a short work day is less than 12 hours. Most learning will be on-the-job when you graduate. Get a degree (from any school), work hard, show interest and you'll do fine.

It is always laughable to witness the absolute indolence (and elitist insolence of East Coast writers of any stripe. Do you guys actually ever leave New York or D.C. and visit anything west of the Mississippi? One time, a reporter for Time Magazine actually climbed down from her ivory perch and came to my hometown looking to write a hack job on the state of education along the Texas border. She asked my mother (the coordinator for an educational foundation) to direct her to the schools with the lowest socio-economic status in the region. When my mom took her to these schools, the writer became incensed because they did not resemble the rotting, ghetto type institutions that are typical in East Coast inner cities. She accused my mom of being deceptive, but the reality was, that while we have our own problems, we tend to care about our public schools and do our best to make them safe and effective learning environments. Since this reality did not jell with the writer’s preconceived notions of our inherent backwardness and inferiority to the superior East Coast, she left with a huff and wrote whatever did resonate with her inflexible view of the world. Thus, do not be surprised by this one-sided, poorly researched article. It is just the typical, lazy write up that is an endemic cancer with this generation.

This limited & biased report is even worse than I thought  it would be..  I expected it to be typical " Fly over" mentality  with possibly half on the west coast. But this  ''journalist' is obviously just trying to puff up his own resume. Or 'butt kiss' his boss's alumnus.

 My profession has taken me all over the U.S.  Not once was I held back because my degree  was from  Topeka's Washburn University or my Masters from K. U. I often wondered what   Ivy League etc. degree holder  co-workers thought when I was promoted over them.  Or  asked my for help & advice.  Were they  envious when they learned  I had paid off my loans within 1 year while they struggled to pay off theirs. It didn't keep head hunters from seeking me out.   Wake up  Kiplinger. There are 50  states. Check out what numerous of their graduates have contributed to the world....

This is the most biased and uninformed article I have made the mistake of reading in a great while. There are 50 states in the Union and at least half of them will provide competitive programs to any listed here. How's that for an uninformed statement? It is just as valid as the east coast bias exhibited by Kiplinger. No wonder I cancelled my subscription years ago.

Very heavy on larger east coast universities. There are schools outside of that coast with great programs for much better prices than you will get with the bigger and east coast schools.

If you are searching for out of state colleges you should do an independent search, or even one on something like Princeton Review or other like sites that will give you the choices of things like size, major, etc. along with cost instead of relying on articles like this. Heck, you should do that if you are looking at any college, in or out of state, to get the best education that fits your learning style and what you want to get out of your college career. Also, if you want to go out of state but don't care for it to be across the country look into reduced out of state tuition programs such as NEEAR that is available in Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska, Missouri, and Colorado where students get a tuition price break if they are residents of one of the other states in the program. The reduction at the university I went to was almost half the regular out of state tuition and just over $1500 more than regular in state.

I went to an awesome low cost smaller state university (not named for the state) who has a reputation for being an excellent teachers college with the lowest prices in the state for tuition all around. My degree is not in teaching and there are a lot of programs that have nothing to do with becoming a teacher. It's not on this list. Hmmm. Even though my husband and I decided it was the right choice for us and our growing family because of the reasons listed above as well as the fact that it was only $500 more a year in tuition, fees, and books than the junior college we were going to. They have a flat tuition rate where as long as you are taking more than 10 credit hours you are charged for just the 10 credit hours. Many parents like this because they know exactly how much they will have to make that check out for every fall instead of worrying about varying rates for number of hours enrolled and extra fees for classes. Those who did not have parents or other money set aside for college (like myself) love that we knew how much financial aid we would have when the check came in the week before classes started so we could plan paying other bills and know exactly how much we could afford in rent. Go Hornets!