Last year, at Amherst, my lacrosse team was responsible for sending three truckloads of food, clothes, and other items to New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. Rather than passing off the transportation duties to a professional driver, our coaches personally drove the trucks from western Massachusetts down to New Orleans where they stayed to help for two weeks. The sense of social commitment to others is not only palpable in the student body, but extended to the faculty and staff.

On the university side, Cal Tech, offers a jaw dropping 3:1 student:faculty ratio and a financial aid policy where students graduate with less than $5,500 in debt -- the national median is $19,500. "I don't have to worry about money," says Andrew Kositsky, a junior whose package will allow him to graduate debt-free. "It's very reassuring."

Not only does Cal Tech offer great packages and flexibility with its aid, "for a math whiz seeking an atmosphere of 'math-science nerdiness,' this tiny institution proved to be a perfect fit." Cal Tech boats five nobel laureates on its faculty, and produces some of the brightest mathematicians and scientists around.

Private schools all over are starting to pledge more funds to those who typically won't end up at schools such as Williams, Harvard, Yale, and Amherst because of cost issues. Amherst President Tony Marx has set in motion an initiative to attract lower-income students whose annual family income is less than $40,000. The college plans to expand its total enrollment by admitting approximately 30 more students each year, and administrators project 10 to 12 will be from the low-income quartile.

Of course, the Kiplinger's report did not reflect in its rankings Mr. Marx's goals and aspirations for educating this segment of the population, which merits high marks in its purpose, but also comes with the potential risk of changing the university's standing on the academic indices Kiplinger reports.