College ROI Report

Updated 2024

College Salary Report

Best-value colleges by state

Payscale’s College ROI Report ranks colleges based on the 20-year salary earnings of college alumni minus the total investment to attend that college (factoring in financial aid) compared to the 24-year earnings of high school graduates without a bachelor’s degree.

When you are choosing a college, location is one of the biggest deciding factors, especially considering that out-of-state colleges cost more than in-state colleges for state residents. Whether you want to stay close to home or travel to a state you’ve always dreamed of living in, Payscale’s College ROI Report can help you find the best-value colleges by state.

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Public colleges often offer lower tuition for residents of their state, so you’ll notice that state schools are entered twice — one ROI figure is based on in-state tuition costs, and another is based on out-of-state tuition costs (noted near the school name.)

If cost is a major factor in deciding where to go to school, you may want to consider in-state public colleges as a top choice. However, some more expensive private colleges are more generous with financial aid or may give you more attention and allow you to graduate faster, so it’s also important to pay attention to how ROI changes when financial aid is applied or how many years it takes the typical student to graduate from each school. Note that all cost figures used for the College ROI Report assume students graduate in four years.

By narrowing our report on best-value colleges by state, you can find out which colleges are good investments, and which ones leave you in the red. College is a huge investment in both money and time. Knowing what kind of return on that investment colleges in each state give you can help you make important financial decisions that will set you up for a successful career. If you know which state you want to live in, browsing the College ROI Report rankings by state makes it easy to choose a college that sets alumni up for success. If you have your heart set on a school with a low return on investment, you can plan your college major or career path accordingly to the average return on investment.

Note that the average value of college education by state varies a lot. States with more engineering colleges, or states with booming economies, may see higher ROIs than states in which unemployment is high or where there are few colleges. States with many more schools in them, like California or New York, have a much bigger variance of ROI statistics than states with very few schools. That is just the law of averages at work. For example, a remote state like Alaska only has a few colleges included in Payscale’s College ROI Report but has one of the higher average 20-year net ROI and annualized ROI figures of any state in the United States even though its schools are not in the top 100 nationally. This doesn’t mean that Alaska schools are the best deal possible; it just means that there are no negative ROI schools to drag the averages down.