LinkedIn’s first-ever Top Colleges ranking identifies the 50 U.S. schools that best set graduates up for long-term success . The ranking is built on exclusive LinkedIn data looking at career outcomes of alumni, such as job placement rates and advancement into senior-level positions, or how many alumni held an internship during their degree or started their own company post-grad.
Here is the top 20:
Princeton University
Duke University
University of Pennsylvania
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cornell University
Harvard University
Babson College
University of Notre Dame
Dartmouth College
Stanford University
Northwestern University
University of Virginia
Vanderbilt University
Brown University
Bentley University
Tufts University
Lehigh University
Columbia University
Yale University
Carnegie Mellon University
What other schools would you add to a top of best colleges for career success?
Do you have any positive personal experiences with your college’s career services that you’d want to share?
21. Bucknell University 22. Boston College 23. Villanova University 24. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 25. Wake Forest University 26. University of Chicago 27. University of Southern California 28. Fairfield University 29. Washington and Lee University 30. University of California-Berkeley 31. Rice University 32. Georgetown University 33. Purdue University 34. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 35. Miami University (OH) 36. Colgate University 37. Southern Methodist University 38. Bryant University 39. Worcester Polytechnic Institute 40. The Pennsylvania State University 41. California Institute of Technology 42. Trinity College 43. Boston University 44. University of Richmond 45. Stevens Institute of Technology 46. The University of Texas at Austin 47. Indiana University Bloomington 48. Lafayette College 49. Providence College 50. University of Wisconsin-Madison
Yet another set of rankings, relevant to this discussion insofar as it emphasizes ROI versus “prestige.” I think LinkedIn is a useful data source from which to mine outcomes. Of course not everyone in on LinkedIn, but it washes out a lot of the response biases inherent in the other rankings. I also like that they break out separate rankings for Public Universities, Liberal Arts Colleges and HBCUs.
Obviously not perfect, but I at least prefer it to “How do we game the selectivity and initial salary numbers, country club bragging rights and alumni responses” approach. More useful data for confused 17 year-olds trying to figure it out. This assumes career advancement velocity and outcomes are a fit factor, which it doesn’t have to be.
However, rating and ranking entire colleges can be inaccurate for an individual student and their preferences regarding college major and career goals. If a student did not want to major in business, economics, engineering, or computer science, and did not want to work in investment banking or management consulting, would the outcome measure comparison be the same as shown?
As much as I’d like this list to be useful, I am not sure that job related outcomes from “the recent cohort (2019-2024)” are going to be directly relevant to upcoming 2025+ cohorts who will be graduating into a very different job market… especially for tech jobs (which seemed to be overrepresented in the data when I looked over the list).
Not everyone on LinkedIn is in these fields. Don’t think the majority of people on LinkedIn are in these fields. LinkedIn is anybody and everybody. One could argue that is the benefit of the methodology. Not everyone runs a hedge fund.
And other surveys are the same - with Pharmaceutical colleges being the highest earners.
It really goes to show you - forget the school name - certain majors win.
Now others will say - but anyone from an Ivy or Wes or whatever wins.
Perhaps but not on salary.
And then a lot of top colleges don’t show career outcomes statistically (salary) - I wonder why? Actually, I don’t wonder why - they wouldn’t want to wreck the brand name.
Yes, they do well with medical and law school etc. and sometimes the sociology major will land in a high paid job but mostly, not - and that’s ok if that’s the desire.
I note Washington and Lee University is #29, the highest LAC after only Babson and Bentley. It also gets disproportionately little attention, although I do my best to remedy that :-).
Maybe some should select such schools, with 65% admission rates as a safety when applying to top tier/more selective schools. So many students change majors that there can be problems if one selects a school largely for a certain major and then find they want to change majors.
Salary reports are a perfect example of GIGO- garbage in and garbage out.
They do not account for stock grants, options, any type of non-cash compensation. They do not adjust for medical residencies which are low paying but can lead to lucrative specialties, they do not distinguish between the Special Ed teacher in a public school and the investor relations person at a start up. The former will max out after 10 years (a respectable salary but not lucrative according to the CC crowd), the latter’s stock grants and options will be worth millions in a few years if the company goes public.
So THAT’s why more institutions don’t report comp. There is no way to normalize the data. And 16 year old’s shouldn’t be choosing their college or their major based on garbage numbers.
Even highly trained economists struggle with messy comp data. How should a teenager deal with it?
And sadly- still- some people go to college to get an education, not to join the “Goldman Sachs Apprenticeship Hunger Games”.
Schools use these to attract people when they have a story to tell. If Amherst or Williams could get milage out of them, you bet they’d list them. Bowdoin used to - they were in the 40s as I recall - where have they gone? Yes, no parent wants to see that - that’s what I’m saying. You live in a bubble (IMHO) if you think otherwise.
Most don’t get stock options. Most are not going to medical school.
They’re what we have.
Now a salary statistic in and of itself is not all that in the sense Bentley doesn’t have low paid majors, etc. education, anthropology etc.
But let’s not dismiss them - they are still a metric and many use these. They are as good as what is reported. For some schools that’s a high percentage. For others less so.
The reason the top LACs aren’t showing is because the American dream isn’t made at $40 or $50k a year. Not because they are not helpful. That’s wishful thinking.
You can look at job titles or orgs and see that these aren’t necessarily high paying jobs those grads seek - as career roles (not just med school prep).
Med school and jobs with stock options aren’t the mainstream.
All want to continue to dismiss salaries and get that’s what is attracting people to those with high #s.
And look at the job prospects thread and yes salary and placement are a thing. Some like to talk out of both sides ……
Students should understand the difference between the treatment effect and the selection effect before they conclude that going to XYZ college and majoring in electrical engineering is going to set them up for life. They should also take a VERY brief tutorial on the “labor markets and the economy, 1987-present”. There is NO recession proof profession. There is NO silver bullet. And reading that Bentley grads earn more than West Point grads 5 years after graduation is distinctly unhelpful.
Why not look at your 17 year old kid who won “Best Athlete” award from his county wide softball team last year and compare the salaries of Aaron Judge and Juan Soto to decide whether he should sign with the Yankees or the Mets?
There are dozens of variables that contribute to who earns what. You are picking on two- college major, and which college- and ignoring everything else.
Last year there was an uproar in my town when the local paper published its annual salary report of the public employees. A relatively low level police officer out-earned the Captain of his department, the Superintendent of Schools (who has a doctorate), the head of the Department of public health (both an MD AND a Phd), etc.
This does NOT suggest that becoming a cop is a lucrative profession (although clearly there are multiple datapoints that show it can be) nor that attending the local state college and majoring in criminal justice leads to lucrative careers (although it’s worked out for this guy).
It did demonstrate that there was a fatal flaw in the last union contract, which allowed someone to moonlight as private security, use his PTO to take overtime shifts for the local utility which has to pay for a uniformed officer (but paid privately) every time they dig up a road, and double-dip on legal holidays.
Every union in America has thousands of employees who helpfully point out the mistakes in their contract when they increase their salary by a factor of 8 (lawfully).
Like I said- dozens of inputs which go into determining who earns what. And the economy can shift on a dime. Who could have guessed that Petroleum Engineers would be unemployed- en masse- the last time oil and gas tanked? Or that CS majors would be retraining as HS math teachers-- frantically- the last tech pullback?