MANHATTAN — New rankings released Tuesday slammed NYU administrators and the school's financial aid program.
The Greenwich Village university ranked No. 1 in the "Financial Aid Not So Great" and "Administrators Get Low Marks" categories of The Princeton Review's 2013 edition of "The Best 377 Colleges" book, based on student surveys.
Fifty-eight percent of undergraduates receive need-based financial aid at the school, where tuition runs more than $40,000 per year, according to The Princeton Review. NYU graduates leave the university with an average of more than $36,000 in loan debt.
That's about $10,000 more than the national average of $25,250 in debt for students graduating with loans in 2010, according to data from the independent Institute for College Access & Success.
NYU — which was nevertheless ranked among the best colleges nationally and in the Northeast — received better marks for being LGBT-friendly and for being located in a top-notch city, ranking fifth nationally in both related categories.
University spokesman John Beckman dismissed the rankings and called improving financial aid for students NYU's "number one fundraising priority."
"We say the same thing regardless of where we stand on any college 'ranking:' we do not believe that universities can be 'ranked,' in any meaningful manner," he said in a statement issued Wednesday.
Rankings are based on 80-question, online student surveys completed during the last three school years. A total of 122,000 students participated in the entire survey, with an average of 324 participants per campus, according to The Princeton Review's website.
