EUGENE–Students at the University of Oregon are getting a great deal–high quality education for a bargain price. So says the latest edition of a popular national consumer guide to U.S. colleges.

For the third year in a row, the UO is listed in "The Fiske Guide to Colleges" as one of the nation’s best bargains for students. The guide’s 2001 edition includes the UO in its "Best Buys" list of 40 schools–19 public and 21 private–in the United States and Canada.

The Fiske Guide includes the editors’ selection of public and private schools that "constitute the ‘Best Buys’–where you can get the best possible education at the most reasonable cost," writes Edward B. Fiske, former New York Times education reporter who started the guide in 1982. Despite rising tuition and decreasing state support, "fortunately there are some bargains to be found in higher education, it just takes a bit of shopping around," he writes.

The Fiske Guide is selective, providing in-depth essays on only 300 of more than 2,000 institutions surveyed each year. Its editors research a standard set of data from school administrators and a cross section of students who complete open-ended survey questions.

In essay questions on the University of Oregon, the surveyed students named architecture, music, creative writing, business, chemistry, journalism, psychology and education as the UO’s strongest programs. The students gave a four-star rating to the UO’s quality of life and three stars each to academics and social life.

The guide describes the UO Library System as the best in the state and includes students’ positive comments about the UO’s Career Center. Students praised the Freshman Seminars, in which veteran professors teach small groups of freshmen, and Freshman Interest Groups that help "new students acclimate to campus life."

Other features students considered noteworthy include the Honors College, a noticeable contingent of international students (14 percent of the student body), and the student-run ESCAPE Program–now known as the Community Internship Program–that offers college credit for volunteer and intern work with nonprofit and academic departments on and off campus.

Students noted the high level of student activism, described the winter rains as a drawback but enthused over nearby outdoor pursuits an hour away on the coast or in the mountains. They also characterized Eugene as a city "where all the hippies went when the ‘60s were over" and a community that "has embraced the university with open arms."

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