
20-year net earnings points range from 0-60, and are based on PayScale’s College ROI Report.Mid-career yearly pay points range from 1-100, and are based on PayScale’s College Salary Report.10-year median earnings points range from 1 to 100, and are based on profile info for each college in the College Scorecard database.Cost points range from 1 to 30, and are based average institutional undergrad tuition and mandatory fees as per IPEDS Data Center data.E.g., more points for lower cost, higher earnings, higher net earnings. Manually verify the top 50 colleges for best return, by total pointsĪctual points applied per ranking measure: In general, we weighted positive results more heavily.Eliminate very specialized colleges with limited majors.Eliminate low-admission, no-tuition colleges such as military academies, for consistency in methodology.Secondary sort ascending on average net price (from IPEDS).Sort candidates by total points descending (from largest to smallest).Calculate final total points from cost range points and both PayScale points, only.For each remaining college, extract its PayScale data (if available else filter out) for mid-career pay and 20-year net ROI.Select the candidates in the top 100 by descending points.Assign points for mid-career pay ranges.For each candidate, query College Scorecard for profile data including mid-career (10+ years) salary info.Assign points for cost ranges (recent average tuition and mandatory fees per college, as per IPEDS).

Sort the remaining candidates by ascending average net price.Filter out colleges with a graduation rate below 20%.Filter out colleges not in the 50 U.S.This reduced potential candidates from 2,000+ to just above 900 colleges. Query NCES for bachelor’s-granting American colleges (public or private nonprofits) that have a tuition of under $20,000/ year.The general approach taken for this article’s ranking methodology is as follows: Article data for this college ranking of best return on investment comes from the following sources:
