Montana State University has been recognized as the best value of any university in the state, according to a ranking published Thursday by the magazine Money.
 
In its listing, the magazine notes that MSU is Montana’s largest university and attracts more than 40 percent of its students from out of state. MSU welcomed a record 16,440 students in fall 2016 and has seen continuous enrollment growth since 2008.
 
In addition to being ranked best in the state, MSU was also listed 364th out of 711 schools ranked on Money’s national Best Colleges for Your Money list.
 
“As a land-grant university committed to academic excellence, Montana State University is proud of its record of maintaining affordability while providing its students with a signature undergraduate education,” said Chris Kearns, MSU’s Vice President of Student Success.
 
To compile its lists, Money calculates the estimated cost of attendances, which includes tuition, housing, fees and other costs, minus the average financial aid to students. Early career earnings of recent graduates are also calculated, based on data from PayScale, a crowdsourced database of compensation information.

“Research spending typically exceeds $100 million, offering undergrads and grad students access to hands-on creative and research projects,” Money wrote in its profile of MSU. “It's also been recognized for its specific commitment to undergraduate research, in which the school invests more than $1.7 million annually.”

MSU is one of 222 U.S. universities – out of more than 4,600 – that has been designated as having higher or highest research activity by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
 
Offering more than 225 academic options in its colleges and programs, MSU is among the top 3 percent of colleges and universities in the nation for research expenditures. It is also Montana’s largest research enterprise, conducting more than $100 million in research annually.
 
MSU is a national leader in producing winners of the Goldwater Scholarship, the nation’s premier award for undergraduates in math and science fields, according to the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation. MSU has produced 68 Goldwater scholars.