Baruch College earned the No. 2 slot for the second year on Washington Monthly’s 2021 “Best Bang for your Buck” in the Northeast.

“The cost of attending is reasonable,” he Washington Monthly said, according to a Baruch press article released on Sept. 28. “This is what an engine of social mobility looks like.”

Since 2018, Baruch has climbed in the standings. It jumped from No.14 to No.3 in 2019, reaching No. 2 in 2020 and 2021.

Baruch ranked higher on the list than Harvard University, Yale University and Princeton University, which have all previously been ranked in the top three.

The “Best Bang for your Buck” ranking accounts for several factors contributing to what is referred to as social mobility. In doing so, the ranking measures the colleges’ abilities to provide lower-income students with valuable degrees at an affordable price.

One key factor measured in the ranking is the college’s graduation rate over eight years.

“Half of that score was determined by the reported graduation rate and the other half came from comparing the reported graduation rate to a predicted graduation rate based on the percentage of Pell recipients, the percentage of students receiving student loans, the admit rate, the racial/ethnic and gender makeup of the student body, the number of students (overall and full-time), and whether a college is primarily residential,” Washington Monthly wrote.

The ranking also looked at the graduation gap between Pell and non-Pell students to determine if the college was successful in helping lower-income students. At Baruch, there was only a 3% gap between the Pell and non-Pell graduation rate.

“At Baruch College, low-income students with Pell Grants graduate at essentially the same rate as their wealthier peers,” Washington Monthly said, according to the press release.

It evaluated the affordability of each college by examining the average net prices paid by first-time, full-time, in-state students with family incomes below $75,000 per year over the past three years.

Of the top five colleges on the list, Baruch had the lowest cost, with a net average price of $2,459.

In order to measure the marketability of degrees given by each college, the rankings measured both the share of students who earned at least 150% of the federal poverty line three years after graduating from college and the student loan repayment rate.

The ranking found that 83% of Baruch graduates were above 150% of the poverty line.

The ranking included a “mix of some of America’s most elite institutions and hidden gems with strong student outcomes and a commitment to upward mobility,” according to Washington Monthly.