There are times in life when cheaper is not necessarily better: when you're choosing a doctor, a life-mate or, perhaps, an institution of higher learning.

In this case, we'll give UCLA props. It keeps scoring big lately: The Westwood campus was recently named one of the best schools in the world by Times Higher Education. And it got more applications for fall than any other U.S. university.

Now the prestigious Princeton Review says UCLA is among America's top 5 …

… “Best Value Public Colleges.”

Here's the thing. The Bruins are in good company:

1. University of Virginia

2. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

3. New College of Florida

4. College of William and Mary

5. University of California–Los Angeles

6. North Carolina State University

7. University of Wisconsin–Madison

8. State University of New York at Binghamton

9. University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

10. University of Georgia

Not bad. And no, USC did not make the list of “Best Value Private Colleges,” although locals Pomona College (number five) and Claremont McKenna College (number 10) did.

According to Princeton, there's value in UCLA's diversity, where there were more Latino fall applicants than white ones:

In a word, the University of California-Los Angeles is about diversity — in what you can study, in what you can do with your free time, in ethnicity, in gender and sexuality, in everything.

Sounds kind of freaky.

[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]

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