DU was ranked No. 41 on a list of top 100 “best value” private universities in a report by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance 2012-2013, up eight places from No. 49 last year.

Kiplinger’s is a monthly financial and business advice magazine which gives annual rankings in affordability to both public and private universities.

Clark University in Worcester ranked a place above DU at 40, and Creighton University ranked a place below at 42 overall. Yale University received the title of the top “best value” private school.

According to Marc Wojno, senior associate editor at Kiplinger’s, the higher ranking was released in Kiplingler’s Private Colleges story in its December magazine.

The higher rank is due to a variety of factors, including slightly improved test scores, a lower student-faculty ratio, a slightly higher five-year graduation rate and a slightly higher freshman retention rate.

In comparison with other national college ranking organizations, such as U.S. News and World Report and the Princeton Review, which have ranked DU no. 82 and no. 83 respectively for best national universities based on a variety of factors, Kiplinger’s rankings focus more on cost and quality.

“We decide how the universities are ranked through the use of numeric data supplied to us by Peterson’s and by the schools,” said Wojno.

Peterson’s is a company which offers assistance to students in college preparation, searches, financial aid and test preparation.

Kiplinger’s categorizes schools into liberal arts colleges and private universities.

“We start with nearly 600 private and liberal arts colleges supplied to us by Peterson’s and narrow the list down to a little more than 100 private and 100 liberal arts colleges,” said Wojno.

According to Wojno, Kiplinger uses a very detailed database with various formulas to calculate their rankings, which are based 56.25 percent on quality factors and 43.75 percent on cost factors.

“We do not have an outside organization that does the rankings for us – we do that in-house based on the data supplied to us by Peterson’s and confirmed by each of the individual schools,” said Wojno.

According to Wojno, Kiplinger’s rankings focus on both quality and affordability, whereas other lists might focus solely on academics or cost.

Kiplinger’s Personal Finance rankings only concern domestic private colleges and universities.