As part of their 2024 “Best Colleges in the U.S.” ranking, the organizations listed schools in order of their impact on graduates’ salaries. Two criteria were used in the evaluation: salary impact versus similar colleges, and years to pay off the average net tuition price. Read more about the methodology here.
These 20 colleges received the highest salary impact scores:
1. University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia)
2. Princeton (N.J.) University
3. Columbia University (New York City)
4. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge)
5. Harvard University (Cambridge)
6. Stanford (Calif.) University
7. Missouri University of Science and Technology (Rolla)
8. Claremont (Calif.) McKenna College
9. Yale University (New Haven, Conn.)
10. Babson College (Wellesley, Mass.)
11. Georgetown University (Washington, D.C.)
12. Michigan Technological University (Houghton)
13. Brigham Young University (Provo, Utah)
14. Lehigh University (Bethlehem, Pa.)
15 (tie). New Jersey Institute of Technology (Newark)
15 (tie). Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago)
17. Duke University (Durham, N.C.)
18. Vanderbilt University (Nashville, Tenn.)
19. Amherst (Mass.) College
20. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, N.Y.)
