The US News list may actually drive the ROI, my friend. Out-of-state students pay about 22k more than in-state students, and here's what the CT Mirror had to say about that:
"Two out of every three new seats went to non-Connecticut residents, which means more students than ever are coming from out-of-state. And in more recent years, when new seats were made available almost 90 percent went to non-residents.
Many of the non-Nutmeggers end up sticking around. Among graduates in UConn’s Class of 2015 who were currently employed, 30 percent of those who moved to Connecticut to go to UConn were employed in-state last September. For Connecticut residents, 78 percent stayed and worked in-state."
The state of UConn in 16 charts
I doubt that this drastic increase in out-of-state folks and their subsequent migration to Connecticut would be happening if UConn was not a top-notch school.
It's good business to be good at education...