With early decision deadlines just around the corner, WalletHub has listed the Virginia colleges that offer the best return on investment in 2027.
The personal finance site WalletHub has created a ranking of the best colleges in Virginia – and the nation at large – to help college-bound seniors and their parents make more informed choices as admission season looms.
That list ranked Washington and Lee University as the 23rd best school in the Nation, and Number 1 school in the Commonwealth.
Writer and analyst for WalletHub, Chip Lupo, says the study compared nearly 750-higher-education institutions across categories like admission rates, net cost, campus safety, and student-to-faculty ratios – as well as factors that went beyond graduation day – to find each university’s spot on the list: “We looked at post-attendant metrics [too]. Things such as student loan default rates, share of former students out-earning high school graduates, median salaries after graduation, those types of things, to kind of show the value of the education students can expect to receive.”
Lupo says as the cost for attending college has continued to climb in recent years, the question of whether there is a return on that investment has become even more crucial: “Even public universities, which were originally modeled to be an affordable and accessible way for state residents to attend college, in a lot of states they’ve become cost-prohibitive. So it’s more and more important to take a look at, ‘If I spend four or five years at this place, when I come out, how much bang am I going to get for my buck,’ so to speak.”
UVA and Virginia Tech were both ranked among the top 10 schools in Virginia, coming in 2nd and 5th place respectively.
The post A Virginia University has been Ranked the 23rd Best College in the Nation first appeared on News/Talk 960-AM & FM-107.3 WFIR.







