Seven Colleges Worth Their Tuition (PHOTOS)

In their new book "Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids - and What We Can Do About It," Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus take American colleges and universities to task. The two authors and professors outline how many schools have lost touch with the idea of actually providing a robust education for the country's youth, focusing instead on outfitting campuses with overpriced amenities.

On the bright side, there are still schools scattered across the country that seek to educate rather than entertain, and Hacker and Dreifus identified 15 of them for the Washington Post. Among the factors that make these colleges great: Growth, innovation, diversity, emphasis on education, few spectator sports and, of course, their price tags.

See Hacker and Dreifus's full list of colleges and justifications here, and check out seven of their featured schools below.