The College of Charleston has been ranked as a “Best Value College” by The Princeton Review.

The Princeton Review and USA Today have released the 2012 “Best Value Colleges” list, which includes the College of Charlestons among 150 of America’s top undergraduate schools offering excellent academics, generous financial aid, and/or relatively low cost of attendance.

The Princeton Review called the College of Charleston “a moderately sized school that manages to make itself feel like a small school, a ‘Southern secret’ that is ‘extremely diverse’ and offers ‘many great fields of study.’”

The report also stated that the College manages to maintain relatively small class sizes, which “allows professors to pay individualized attention to students and to make time to advise their students outside of class.”

The Princeton Review chose its “Best Value” schools based on analyses of data the company collected from an initial list of 650 institutions it identified as having excellent academics. More than 30 data points were assessed across three primary areas: academics, cost of attendance, and financial aid.

The Princeton Review also factored in data from surveys of students attending the schools who shared assessments of their professors and their satisfaction with their financial aid awards.

The College of Charleston was one of four South Carolina schools to make the list. For more information, visit the Princeton Review website.