The Best Colleges in America, Ranked by Value

Data10
Thu, 27 Aug 2020 19:46:15 +0000

This ranking has a unique set of weightings. The weightings that are weighted 3% or higher appear to be as follows.

12% – Average Net Price of Degree (after FA, considering time to graduate)
9% – Graduation Rate
9% – Actual vs Expected Graduation Rate
8% – Net Price by Income Bracket for Federal FA Recipients
6% – Average Student Debt
4.5% – Major Adjusted Early Career Earnings
4.5% – Unemployment Rate, 6 Years After Starting College
4.5% – Share Making $28k+, 6 Years After Starting College
4% – % of Federal FA Recipients who Make at Least a $1 Payment on Loans
4% – Actual vs Expected Federal FA Recipient Loan Re-payment
3% – Earnings <5 Years After College
3% – Actual vs Expected Earnings <5 Years After College
3% – Earnings 10 Years After College
3% – Student Faculty Ratio
3% – College In Financial Trouble Rating
3% – Pell Grant Graduation Rate

It emphasizes cost vs earnings ROI type measures, but also includes graduation rate. They partially correct these measures with controls, but still leave much uncorrected. For example 4.5% are earnings with controls for major, and 3% are earnings with controls for student strength; but 3+3 = 6% are earnings without controls. This results in a strong bias towards colleges with a high percentage who go in to high earnings fields like engineering or finance, but not as high as if they did not have controls in any of the weightings.

However, it’s not just a list of engineering/maritine/finance/,., schools, as occurs on a simple ROI list. The largest weight for is for average net price after FA, so having either lower cost or excellent FA is important. This can hurt some of the expensive schools that tend to do well in USNWR. I believe this relates to why Harvey Mudd does poorly in spite of having high engineering % and high earnings. Some specific example rankings from the list are below.

MIT = #1
Stanford = #2
Michigan = #4
UCSD, UCD = #9 and #10
Texas A&M = #11
Harvard = #14
Florida = #16
Cal State: LB = #25
Brown = #77
Harvey Mudd = #200
Pitzer = #518

Of course the list is near meaningless and shouldn’t be used for much beyond amusement since it it doesn’t control for individuals For example, to estimate your ROI you need to consider what the college will cost you, not the average cost. If you are a low income kid ,or a full pay kid, or get a scholarship, or … the ranking will be very different. And you need to consider the expected earnings for you in your field after controlling for things like cost of living, not the expected earnings for average student at the college, who probably has different major and different field of work.