Here's how we came up with our list:

• We use "indebtedness" — the average loan balance a student with demonstrated financial need carries at graduation — as our way of measuring affordability. It's not perfect—your actual aid package will vary based on your specific financial situation—but we like it because it gives you a sense for how much your education is likely going to put you in debt once you've graduated.  Indebtedness is widely reported via the Common Data Set.

• We capped the list by looking for the University of California or Cal State University campus with the highest indebtedness. This turned out to be San Jose State University, where graduates that have taken a loan leave with an average loan balance of $23,467.

• We then pulled from our coverage universe (270+ institutions) the list of private schools with indebtedness values lower than this amount.  The result: our list 51 schools.

While the list isn't exhaustive and only reflects averages, it should prove a useful way to uncover possibilities you might not have considered before.  To this end, we've included mid-50th percentile SAT and ACT ranges, the admission rate and a link to each school's website for each school on the list.  Good luck!

NOTE: For those of you using College Kickstart, simply check the "Low Indebtedness" box in MixFixer™ to factor these schools into your college plans.