A surprising range of schools, including eight from the City Colleges of New York and four Ivies, make this list.
By Emma Whitford, Forbes Staff
Acollege degree is a huge investment—for some, the largest they’ll ever make. As tuition prices continue to tick up at public and private colleges across the country and student debt totals swell to more than $1.7 trillion, ensuring that students receive a worthwhile return on their investment is an increasingly important factor in selecting a college.
To determine which colleges deliver the best bang for your buck, we first looked at a unique measure from think tank Third Way, which calculates what it calls a price-to-earnings premium. This measures how many months or years worth of excess earnings it would take graduates of each college to pay down the average out-of-pocket cost of their degree (that’s the net cost after taking into account all scholarships and grants they get). Excess earnings are defined as the post-graduate earnings boost alumni receive over a typical high school graduate. We filtered that list further by looking for colleges that also graduate students with a low student debt burden to identify schools that quickly put graduates on a path toward financial success.
Because of their generous grant policies, the return on investment for some Ivy League schools is hard to beat—graduates at Princeton University, No. 1 on Forbes’ 2023 America’s Top Colleges List, can theoretically pay for the out-of-pocket cost of their degree with less than a year of excess earnings. Notably, they earn median salaries near $100,000 six years after graduation. Name recognition and assumed prestige play a large role in determining who gets the well-paid jobs at elite companies, and recruiters begin to court students at Ivy League schools starting in their freshman year.
But highly selective Ivy League schools are far from students’ only option for a degree worth their time and money. Eight public schools in the City Colleges of New York system make this list, offering students degrees that will net them a post-graduate earnings boost over their peers with high school diplomas for little, if any, student debt. Pomona College in Claremont, California and Amherst College in Massachusetts—both well-known, private liberal arts colleges—also graduate students with little debt and degrees that help secure well-paying jobs. Six years after graduation, alumni from both institutions earn median salaries above $74,000.
Check out the gallery below to learn more about the 25 top colleges that offer graduates a high return on their investment without breaking the bank.
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