<p>What's</a> Your College Degree Worth? - Businessweek</p>
<p>"Like many difficult questions, the answer to that one is: It depends. Yes, it depends on where you went to school, but it also depends on what you studied, how long it took you to graduate, and whether you got financial aid, among many other factors. To answer that question, PayScale dug into its trove of 1.4 million pay reports from individuals using its online pay-comparison tools and calculated the return on investment, or ROI, for nearly 700 U.S. schools. The table below is divided into four sections. The first is 30-year net ROI, both for students who did, and did not, receive financial aid grants. This figure takes into consideration several factors, including how long it takes most students to graduate and the likelihood of not graduating at each institution. The next section presents the same information, but for graduates only. The third and fourth sections are identical to the first and second, except the data is for a 15-year time frame. To the right of every ROI dollar amount is the school's rank on that metric. State schools are presented twice, with ROI figures calculated using in-state and out-of-state tuition. For more information on the methodology, see the footnote below. . . .(continued)"</p>
<p>Business Week/Bloomberg/PayScale
National Return on Investment Ranking For U.S. Universities</p>
<p>1----Caltech
2----Harvey Mudd
3----MIT
4----Princeton
5----Stanford
6----Dartmouth
7----Duke
8----Harvard
9----Penn
10---Notre Dame
11---Babson College
12---Yale
13---Lehigh
14---Columbia
15---Amherst
16---Colgate
17---Worcester Polytech
18---Berkeley
19---Cornell
20---Rensselaer Polytech</p>
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<p>Make of this what you will. The PayScale data from which these rankings were derived have been criticized by many. On the other hand, I doubt there is any statistical ranking or data that would receive unanimous support from our tough crowd here on CC. Even the National Research Council rankings (easily the most highly regarded of all analyses of U.S. universities) come under frequent fire on our boards.</p>
<p>What the above list does seem to reveal is that schools with a heavier emphasis on science and engineering tend to produce graduates who prosper financially. Schools with a special emphasis on business training at the undergraduate level (e.g. Penn and Babson) also seem to do well. </p>
<p>There are many non-economic reasons for attending a university but for some, the above ranking may be of great interest.</p>