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In these times of tight or reduced state budgets, it's important for some colleges to efficiently spend their limited resources in order to produce the highest possible educational quality. U.S. News has developed an exclusive new list showing which schools are able to produce the highest educational quality, as determined by their place in our Best Colleges rankings, but spend relatively less money to achieve that quality.

U.S. News measures financial resources by taking into account how much a school spends per student on instruction, research, student services, and related educational expenditures. Financial resources has a 10 percent weight in the Best Colleges ranking methodology.

The new list is based on operating efficiency, defined as a school's 2011 fiscal year financial resources per student divided by its overall score (the basis U.S. News uses to determine its overall numerical rank) in the 2013 Best Colleges rankings. This calculation reveals how much each school is spending to achieve one point in the overall score and its position in the rankings.