Despite a steady rise in tuition over the past few years, students are still getting a fair deal on the cost of their education according to Kiplinger’s latest rankings.

According to Kiplinger, the premier publisher of business and finance advice in the D.C. area, 2011 ranking of the “Best Values in Private Schools,” Georgetown offers the 24th best value among private colleges, coming in behind all Ivy League universities, as well as fellow Jesuit school Boston College. The Hoyas did, however, receive the highest ranking among D.C.-area schools.

Kiplinger, a D.C.-based firm that publishes often on business and personal finance, issues annual value rankings for both public and private universities. The rating system relies partly on admissions rates. Schools with lower rates of acceptance are generally placed higher on the list; however, Georgetown, which has an admissions rate of about 20 percent, placed lower than schools with higher admissions rates such as The University of Notre Dame, Northwestern, Boston College, Johns Hopkins and Emory.

The rating system does not take into account postgraduate employment rates or average income. According to Jane Clark, senior associate editor for Kiplinger, those statistics are both hard to gather and do not reflect the goals of the organization’s rating system.

“I’m not sure it would be feasible for us to include [that criteria], nor have we concluded that those measures necessarily correlate with our definition of value,” Clark said in an email.

Kiplinger did look at the average debt of graduates, which was estimated to be $25,000 for Georgetown graduates. This statistic was only used to break ties, however. Student to faculty ratios are also taken into consideration. Georgetown’s average ratio of 10 students per faculty member did not win the university points over first-ranked Princeton and second-ranked Yale, though both of the universities were reported as having much higher ratios. The California Institute of Technology, which was ranked third, had a lower ratio of three students per faculty member.

According to Kiplinger’s website, the rating system also takes into account students’ SAT scores, four-year graduation rates and total cost per year along with average financial aid. Georgetown’s four-year graduation rate is listed as 85.4 percent, while its five-year rate is 90 percent; these rates are comparable to those of higher ranked schools.

Georgetown often scores high on national college rankings: In this year’s Newsweek rankings the university was included in the top 25 most diverse schools, most desirable urban schools, best gay-friendly schools, schools for future powerbrokers, as well as best schools for brainiacs.