(MONEY Magazine) – The winner and still champion: New College of the University of South Florida. For the second consecutive year, the Sarasota school is America's best college buy, topping Money's annual ranking of 959 four-year colleges and universities. New College stayed No. 1 by not raising tuition ($7,943) for 1994-95 and not reducing the quality of its education. On the other hand, Rice University repeated in the No. 2 spot, despite an 11.7% hike in freshman tuition and fees to $10,775 -- almost twice the 6.2% average national increase. Rice didn't drop in our rankings because of the unusually superb education it offers. So what's remarkably new in our fifth annual ranking, you ask? The answer: Historically black 2,007-student Spelman College and 1,385- student St. Mary's College of Maryland joined the top 10 for the first time. For profiles of our top 10, see page 22; for an explanation of how we rank schools, turn to page 21.

Top 100

1. New College of the U. of South Florida 2. Rice University (Texas) 3. Trenton State College (N.J.) 4. State University of N.Y.-Binghamton 5. Northeast Missouri State U. 6. Hanover College (Ind.) 7. Rutgers U.-New Brunswick (N.J.) 8. California Institute of Technology 9. Spelman College (Ga.) 10. St. Mary's College of Maryland 11. Grove City College (Pa.) 12. U. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill 13. University of Texas-Austin 14. Wake Forest University (N.C.) 15. State University of N.Y.-Geneseo 16. University of Georgia 17. Yale University (Conn.) 18. Fisk University (Tenn.) 19. U. of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign 20. State University of N.Y.-Albany 21. Washington and Lee University (Va.) 22. State University of N.Y.-Stony Brook 23. University of the South (Tenn.) 24. Trinity University (Texas) 25. Hendrix College (Ark.) 26. Hillsdale College (Mich.) 27. State University of N.Y.-Buffalo 28. Centre College (Ky.) 29. University of Florida 30. Florida State University 31. Sweet Briar College (Va.) 32. University of Washington 33. Wabash College (Ind.) 34. Baylor University (Texas) 35. Miami University (Ohio) 36. University of Iowa 37. Emory and Henry College (Va.) 38. James Madison University (Va.) 39. Mary Washington College (Va.) 40. Clemson University (S.C.) 41. Samford University (Ala.) 42. Centenary College of Louisiana 43. Pomona College (Calif.) 44. Camden College-Rutgers U. (N.J.) 45. Creighton University (Neb.) 46. Claremont McKenna College (Calif.) 47. Austin College (Texas) 48. Berry College (Ga.) 49. University of Wisconsin-Madison 50. Harvey Mudd College (Calif.) 51. Salem College (N.C.) 52. Illinois College 53. Johns Hopkins University (Md.) 54. New Jersey Inst. of Technology 55. Agnes Scott College (Ga.) 56. Southwestern University (Texas) 57. University of South Carolina 58. Rosemont College (Pa.) 59. Dartmouth College (N.H.) 60. St. Bonaventure University (N.Y.) 61. University of Virginia 62. Rose-Hulman Inst. of Technology (Ind.) 63. Elms College (Mass.) 64. Grinnell College (Iowa) 65. Columbia University (N.Y.) 66. University of Missouri-Columbia 67. Swarthmore College (Pa.) 68. Siena College (N.Y.) 69. Virginia Polytechnic Institute 70. Williams College (Mass.) 71. Nazareth College of Rochester (N.Y.) 72. University of California-Berkeley 73. Manhattanville College (N.Y.) 74. College of William and Mary (Va.) 75. Central University of Iowa 76. Chestnut Hill College (Pa.) 77. St. Mary's U. of San Antonio (Texas) 78. Franklin College (Ind.) 79. Bellarmine College (Ky.) 80. Washington University (Mo.) 81. Birmingham-Southern College (Ala.) 82. Harvard University (Mass.) 83. Transylvania University (Ky.) 84. U. of California-Los Angeles 85. Le Moyne College (N.Y.) 86. Furman University (S.C.) 87. Wells College (N.Y.) 88. Bluffton College (Ohio) 89. Stanford University (Calif.) 90. Amherst College (Mass.) 91. Scripps College (Calif.) 92. University of California-Davis 93. Marymount College (Va.) 94. Princeton University (N.J.) 95. University of Delaware 96. Indiana University-Bloomington 97. Rockhurst College (Mo.) 98. University of Minnesota-Morris 99. University of Dallas (Texas) 100.Cornell University (N.Y.)