Lamar and UH are schools with a lot of first-generation college students. So, the social mobility thing makes a lot of sense.
I don't know if I'd say the ranking is worthless without financial aid. If you have some measure of where students are going in and coming out, that's worthwhile. But, how much debt they have coming out would be good to know also. Or, perhaps they should be using some kind of effective average tuition instead of the nominal tuition.
