Money wise, UC Berkeley ranks 4th among U.S. universities

SAN FRANCISCO, July 11 (Xinhua) -- When it comes to colleges that give students the most for their money, the University of California, Berkeley, ranks fourth among 711 U.S. schools evaluated by Money magazine, up one step from last year's fifth-place showing.

Princeton University topped the chart for the second year in a row. UC Berkeley came in fourth behind second-ranked City University of New York (CUNY) Bernard M. Baruch College and third-ranked University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

Fifth place went to the University of California, Los Angeles, which is tied with Stanford University, and two more UC campuses, namely Irvine (7th) and Davis (9th), placed ahead of No. 10 Harvard University.

The UC campuses were among 11 public universities in the top 20.

The quality of education, affordability and student outcomes are the three cornerstones of the rankings, broken down into 27 different factors.

New to this year's rankings are data on the market value of the most commonly listed skills for alumni, and on the schools' track records in moving low-income students into the upper middle class, according to Money.