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The University of Connecticut was recently named one of the 50 best values in public higher education by the Princeton Review – echoing Kiplinger’s Magazine, which produced a similar list in January.

The Review chose the schools as its “Best Value Colleges” for 2011 based on criteria covering academics, cost of attendance, and financial aid. The methodology examined more than 30 factors, using data from the company’s surveys of administrators and students at 650 colleges with strong academic programs. Most of the data analyzed came from surveys conducted from fall 2009 through fall 2010: all cost and financial aid data came from fall 2010 surveys.

“While a college education is undeniably a valuable investment, paying for college is challenging for most parents,” said Robert Franek, Princeton Review Senior VP/Publishing “Among the 12,000 respondents to our 2010 ‘College Hopes & Worries Survey’ of college applicants and their parents, 86 percent told us financial aid would be ‘very necessary’ to foot the bill. For them and for all families seeking academically outstanding colleges that have been exceptional at meeting their students’ needs for financial aid, we’re pleased to have teamed up with USA TODAY to identify and recommend these 100 institutions as ‘Best Value’ colleges.”

A new UConn webpage details some of the reasons why the University is a great value.