Athens, GA – An error discovered in data submitted by the University of Georgia to Smart Money magazine has resulted in a re-ranking of the top four universities in the publication’s recent “Best Payback” list. UGA now is ranked fourth in the list on which it originally was placed first based on the inaccurate data. The magazine posted the correction to its website, http://www.smartmoney.com/, this afternoon.
“The data that UGA submitted to Smart Money magazine for this ranking was inadvertently in error, in that it failed to take into account the university’s transition from the quarter system to the semester system in 1998. That error skewed the calculation of the return on investment in a UGA education,” said UGA Vice President for Public Affairs Tom Jackson. “We regret the error and apologize to Smart Money and to the other institutions in the ranking.”
As a result of the re-ranking, the previous #2, #3 and #4 institutions move up to the top three spots, respectively. They are Texas A&M, the University of Texas at Austin, and Georgia Tech. No rankings other than the top four were affected by the data error.
