From MIT to the City College of New York, these 25 schools send graduates out into the world with high earnings potential and little if any student debt.
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Here's your Forbes daily briefing for Wednesday, August 28th. Today on Forbes, the 25 colleges with the highest payoff. Colleges and investment and one more and more Americans are leery of. Most now say a college degree isn't worth taking on student debt. A new Gallup poll finds a third of Americans, triple the number of a decade ago, have little to no confidence in higher education, with costs, along with politics, underlying this growing disenchantment. So here's the good news. There are lots of schools on Forbes' America's top colleges list, which was just released this week, that actually produce an excellent return on investment. This is about more than just the sticker price. Going to a cheap school that produces lousy job prospects and taking on even a few thousand dollars in debt, plus the lost time you spent studying, may not be worth it. Pick an expensive school that reduces the net cost with generous aid and catapults its graduates into lucrative careers, and your investment could pay off big time. To determine which of Forbes' top 500 colleges offer the best return on investment or ROI, we looked at each school's price to earnings premium, a calculation by the think tank third way, that shows the number of years it takes graduates to recoup the net cost of their education. We also factored in the school's debt-to-percent borrowed index, a figure that Forbes created for the top 500 colleges list that takes into account how many students take on debt to attend the school, and how much debt those graduates leave with. Combined, these measures gave us 25 schools that offer a low debt education and promise high earnings potential. In other words, a high average ROI. Some of them come as no surprise. Science and technology heavy hitters Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for example, both offer their students stellar ROIs. Others, like the Nine City University of New York, or CUNY schools on this list, are less well known, particularly outside of New York. Here are a few of the schools on this list. Princeton University continues to take the number one spot not only in the top 500, but also in terms of students' return on investment. The New Jersey Ivy League University offers nearly 40 majors and certificate programs. The most popular majors are computer science, economics, and public policy. Over the years, more graduates have gone into the finance and technology sectors than any other industry, with business, consulting, and hedge funds also being well represented. A median salary for a Princeton graduate 10 years after receiving their diploma is just under $200,000, and the university's generous financial aid, backed by a huge $34 billion endowment, ensures that students graduate with little to no debt. Stanford University in California is known nationwide for its focus on STEM programs and its pipeline to high paying Silicon Valley jobs. CUNY students end up in the technology and startup space, and within a few years of graduating, the median Stanford grad brings home $100,000 or more per year. Only around 5% of students take out federal loans to attend the university, with the median loan amount totaling $9,851. CUNY City College of New York, known as CCNY, is the first of nine city university of New York schools on this list, and the oldest in the 25 college public system. It was also the first free public institution of higher education in America. It's no longer free, but undergraduate tuition for New York state residents is just $6,930 a year. Psychology, biology, and computer science are popular majors at the public college in midtown Manhattan, and graduates recoup their net cost in just six months, according to third-way data. California Institute of Technology graduates earn a median salary of $132,140, six years after enrolling, and for many bachelor's degree holders, two years after graduating. The science and technology-oriented school in Pasadena, California offers its graduates a price-to-earnings premium of 0.73, meaning it takes graduates about nine months to recoup the cost of their education. For full coverage, and to see the entire list of 25, plus the whole America's top colleges list, check out Francesca Walton's piece on Forbes.com. This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes. Thanks for tuning in. [BLANK_AUDIO]
