The magazine looked at the public and private colleges that scored the highest on overall undergraduate academic educational quality, as measured by their position (NGU was 25th in the south) in the 2015 Best Colleges rankings, but that spent relatively less on their educational programs to achieve that quality.
According to the magazine’s blogger, Bob Morse, “schools that are featured on the lists are doing a good job in managing their financial resources relative to other schools that may have far greater financial resources because of more state funding, higher tuition or larger endowments.”