As much as we would like to bemoan our tuition rates and hikes, college is a useful investment, no matter which school you attend. But as we all know, college is expensive. Are some schools more worth your time and money than others? The Princeton Review thinks so, and has published the 2016 list of 50 Colleges That Pay You Back after researching 650 different schools.
The official term they use is ROI (return on investment), which considers the tuition amounts of various colleges, their financial aid packages, and the employment and salaries of alumni, among other factors. Basic stuff like, how much does the school cost? And how well does it prepare you for a great job that will help you make up the money you spent to go there? We couldn’t help but notice a few Ivy League institutions studding the list: Harvard, Princeton, Yale. Other schools included Rice University, the University of California (Berkeley), and The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. See below for the top 10, as published on BostInno.
1. California Institute of Technology (Pasadena, CA)
2. Princeton University (Princeton, NJ)
3. The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (New York, NY)
4. Harvey Mudd College (Claremont, CA)
5. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA)
6. Stanford University (Stanford, CA)
7. Yale University (New Haven, CT)
8. University of California (Berkeley, CA)
9. Rice University (Houston, TX)
10. Harvard College (Cambridge, MA)
“On so many fronts that matter to parents and students alike, these colleges are truly standouts,” said Robert Franek, The Princeton Review’s Senior VP/Publisher and the lead author of Colleges That Pay You Back. “They offer outstanding academics and generous financial aid to students with need and/or charge a relatively low cost of attendance. Some, phenomenally, do both. Their students also have access to extraordinary career services programs and a lifetime of alumni connections and post-grad support.”
Check out Princeton Review’s report on colleges that offer the highest ROIs, and see if yours made the cut! If not, don’t worry—Your education is what you make of it, not what the statistics say.