It’s valid to wonder whether college is worth it at all—but the answer might depend on what college you’re talking about.
In 2019, the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce published an extensive report that ranked 4500 colleges and universities according to return on investment [PDF]. Researchers used data on tuition and postgraduate salaries from the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard to determine the worth of a degree 10, 15, 20, 30, and 40 years after enrollment.
The metric they went with for return on investment is “net present value” (NPV), which, per the report, is “how much a sum of money in the future is valued today costs, future earnings, and the length of time it would take to invest and earn a certain amount of money over a fixed horizon.”
To them, the 40-year mark is the most accurate measure of worth, so that’s what we went with in the table below. The top 25 is a more eclectic mix than a garden-variety list of best colleges and universities. You’ve got your Yales and your Harvards, sure, but there are also a number of more trade-specific institutions. The top three, for example, are all pharmacy schools: Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, St. Louis College of Pharmacy, and Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. There are also a handful of maritime academies and, unsurprisingly, several tech institutes.
See the top 25 below, and explore the full report here, which also lets you filter for various factors. (You can, for example, choose to only see four-year or two-year schools, private or public schools, or only schools in, say, Ohio. There’s also a search function so you don’t have to scroll to find your own institution.)
Ranking | School | Location | 40-Year NPV |
---|---|---|---|
1. | Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences | Albany, New York | $2,722,000 |
2. | St. Louis College of Pharmacy | St. Louis, Missouri | $2,714,000 |
3. | Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences | Boston, Massachusetts | $2,421,000 |
4. | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Cambridge, Massachusetts | $2,273,000 |
5. | Stanford University | Stanford, California | $2,068,000 |
6. | Maine Maritime Academy | Castine, Maine | $2,043,000 |
7. | Babson College | Wellesley, Massachusetts | $1,985,000 |
8. | Harvard University | Cambridge, Massachusetts | $1,967,000 |
9. | Georgetown University | Washington, D.C. | $1,950,000 |
10. | United States Merchant Marine Academy | Kings Point, New York | $1,949,000 |
11. | University of the Sciences | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | $1,928,000 |
12. | Massachusetts Maritime Academy | Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts | $1,869,000 |
13. | Harvey Mudd College | Claremont, California | $1,851,000 |
14. | Stevens Institute of Technology | Hoboken, New Jersey | $1,833,000 |
15. | University of Pennsylvania | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | $1,832,000 |
16. | California State University Maritime Academy | Vallejo, California | $1,818,000 |
17. | California Institute of Technology | Pasadena, California | $1,810,000 |
18. | Colorado School of Mines | Golden, Colorado | $1,794,000 |
19. | Bentley University | Waltham, Massachusetts | $1,786,000 |
20. | Yale University | New Haven, Connecticut | $1,777,000 |
21. | Columbia University | New York City, New York | $1,769,000 |
22. | SUNY Maritime College | New York City, New York | $1,761,000 |
23. | Duke University | Durham, North Carolina | $1,754,000 |
24. | Carnegie Mellon University | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania | $1,750,000 |
25. | Georgia Institute of Technology | Atlanta, Georgia | $1,729,000 |