Which MS Stats programs are actually good?

[jelquiades]

I am not looking for the quickest option, nor the cheapest one. I want one that will give me a good education, ideally capped off with a thesis.

Seems to me like Stanford and UChicago have good programs. Duke also appears to be good. From my random clicking around, NC state also seems decent. However, the Columbia program sounds like a cash cow (moreso than masters programs already are).

I don't know if any of this is true. My question is how the hell do you guys know what's actually good? There's got to be a better way than going down the usnews list and browsing individual programs... right?