(MONEY Magazine) – Your kid may have no aptitude for Caltech, MONEY's best college value, but he or she does not need to be a rocket scientist to find a terrific deal. On the following pages, you'll learn of more than 175 schools that provide great bang for the buck. They include MONEY's top 100 choices and the 50 runners-up, as well as spectacular values in specialty schools, public colleges and schools that carry hefty price tags but are well worth the weight. We have also listed the best buys in each geographical area, the top values among small liberal arts schools and women's colleges, and eight unbeatable deals--colleges that charge no tuition.

Among this year's winners are three MONEY perennials: Rice University, New College of the University of South Florida and Caltech, which have been in our top 10 since we began these rankings seven years ago. What's new? Two schools that made the top 10 last year, the University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign and the State University of New York at Albany, have dropped out, but they remain in the top 25 for the seventh straight year. The two schools that have replaced them in the top 10 are the University of Texas-Austin and St. Mary's College of Maryland, moving up from No. 12 and No. 13 respectively. Twenty of the top 25 schools are repeaters. The newcomers are Grove City College, Howard University, Mary Washington College, Trinity University and Yale University. For an explanation of how we rank the schools, see page 118.

THE TOP 100

Here are the best of the bunch, the elite values in college education today.

1. California Institute of Technology 2. New College of the U. of South Florida 3. Rice University (Texas) 4. Truman State University (Mo.) 5. College of New Jersey 6. University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill 7. Spelman College (Ga.) 8. University of Texas-Austin 9. St. Mary's College of Maryland 10. State University of N.Y. at Binghamton 11. Hanover College (Ind.) 12. Grove City College (Pa.) 13. Georgia Institute of Technology 14. University of Florida 15. State University of N.Y.-Albany 16. Hendrix College (Ark.) 17. University of Washington 18. James Madison University (Va.) 19. Howard University (D.C.) 20. Trinity University (Texas) 21. State U. of N.Y.-College at Geneseo 22. Mary Washington College (Va.) 23. University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign 24. University of Georgia 25. Yale University (Conn.) 26. Samford University (Ala.) 27. Hillsdale College (Mich.) 28. Washington and Lee University (Va.) 29. Clemson University (S.C.) 30. McPherson College (Kans.) 31. University of Iowa 32. Florida State University 33. Centre College (Ky.) 34. Wheaton College (Ill.) 35. Auburn University (Ala.) 36. Fisk University (Tenn.) 37. State U. of N.Y.-College at Fredonia 38. Miami University (Ohio) 39. Sweet Briar College (Va.) 40. State U. of N.Y. at Stony Brook 41. Wabash College (Ind.) 42. University of the South (Tenn.) 43. State University of N.Y. at Buffalo 44. Rutgers U.-New Brunswick (N.J.) 45. University of Virginia 46. Pomona College (Calif.) 47. Texas A&M U.-College Station 48. University of Wisconsin-Madison 49. Drury College (Mo.) 50. University of South Carolina-Columbia 51. Humboldt State University (Calif.) 52. William Jewell College (Mo.) 53. University of California-Berkeley 54. Grinnell College (Iowa) 55. Siena College (N.Y.) 56. Claremont McKenna College (Calif.) 57. Austin College (Texas) 58. Wisconsin Lutheran College 59. New Jersey Institute of Technology 60. Tabor College (Kans.) 61. University of California-Irvine 62. Berry College (Ga.) 63. College of William and Mary (Va.) 64. Johns Hopkins University (Md.) 65. Muskingum College (Ohio) 66. State U. of N.Y. College at Plattsburgh 67. Creighton University (Neb.) 68. Westminster College (Mo.) 69. Emory and Henry College (Va.) 70. Harvard University (Mass.) 71. Kentucky Wesleyan College 72. Nebraska Wesleyan University 73. University of Delaware 74. Benedictine University (Ill.) 75. Trinity Christian College (Ill.) 76. St. Bonaventure University (N.Y.) 77. Stanford University (Calif.) 78. Martin Luther College (Minn.) 79. Birmingham-Southern College (Ala.) 80. Furman University (S.C.) 81. Gordon College (Mass.) 82. Huntingdon College (Ala.) 83. Carson-Newman College (Tenn.) 84. Le Moyne College (N.Y.) 85. Southwestern University (Texas) 86. Virginia Military Institute 87. Baylor University (Texas) 88. Ohio University 89. Lyon College (Ark.) 90. Swarthmore College (Pa.) 91. University of Pittsburgh (Pa.) 92. University of Minnesota-Twin Cities 93. Agnes Scott College (Ga.) 94. Northwestern University (Ill.) 95. Doane College (Neb.) 96. Rutgers University-Newark (N.J.) 97. St. John's University (Minn.) 98. University of Cincinnati (Ohio) 99. North Carolina State University 100. Wake Forest University (N.C.)

THE 50 RUNNERS-UP

The schools named below fill slots No. 101 to No. 150 in our 1997 college value ratings. Because these schools rank within a scant hundredth of a percentage point of one another, they are listed here in alphabetical order.

Assumption College (Mass.) Baker University (Kans.) Central College (Iowa) Chestnut Hill College (Pa.) College of St. Rose (N.Y.) Columbia University (N.Y.) Dartmouth College (N.H.) DePauw University (Ind.) Duquesne University (Pa.) Fordham University (N.Y.) Franklin College (Ind.) Harvey Mudd College (Calif.) Hollins College (Va.) Illinois College Indiana U.-Bloomington Loyola University (La.) Millsaps College (Miss.) Nazareth College of Rochester (N.Y.) Ottawa University (Kans.) Otterbein College (Ohio) Pennsylvania State University Princeton University (N.J.) Providence College (R.I.) Rockhurst College (Mo.) Rose-Hulman Inst. of Tech. (Ind.) Russell Sage College (N.Y.) Rutgers U.-Camden (N.J.) St. Vincent College (Pa.) Salem College (N.C.) Santa Clara University (Calif.) Springfield College (Mass.) State U. of N.Y.-Oneonta Stonehill College (Mass.) Texas Christian University Thomas More College (Ky.) Transylvania University (Ky.) University of California-Davis U. of California-Los Angeles U. of California-Riverside U. of Maryland-College Park U. of Missouri-Columbia University of Rhode Island University of Richmond (Va.) University of Tulsa (Okla.) Valparaiso University (Ind.) Virginia Polytechnic Institute Washington University (Mo.) Williams College (Mass.) Wofford College (S.C.) Xavier University (Ohio)