University of Virginia - Academics

Academics

Degrees from the University of Virginia must be earned academically – there has never been an honorary degree offered. The policy was instituted by Thomas Jefferson. When the Virginia Legislature's Committee of Schools and Colleges was reconsidering it in 1845, then-U.Va. professor and future Massachusetts Institute of Technology founder William Barton Rogers wrote, "he legislators of the University have, we think, wisely made their highest academic honor – that of Master of Arts of the University of Virginia – the genuine test of diligent and successful literary training, and, disdaining such literary almsgiving, have firmly barred the door against the demands of spurious merit and noisy popularity." When MIT was chartered in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1861, Rogers carried the U.Va. policy through to the new institute.

The University of Virginia places #1 among state-supported universities in the United States in the production of Rhodes Scholars. The University's 47th Rhodes Scholar was named in 2010.

Tuition is lower for both in-state and out-of-state students than at most other top universities. The student composition of the University is such that it was described in a feature article in the 2006 America's Best Colleges edition of U.S. News and World Report as being "chock full of academic stars who turn down private schools like Duke, Princeton, and Cornell for, they say, a better value." Indeed, in 2008 the Center for College Affordability and Productivity named the University the top value among all national public colleges and universities; and in 2009, the University was again named the "#1 Best Value" among public universities in the United States in a separate ranking by USA TODAY and the Princeton Review.