10 Colleges With the Best Return on Investment in 2023
- Getting a degree doesn’t guarantee you’ll land a job that utilizes your education or even pays enough to cover your student loans.
- That’s why it’s important to pick a college that can lead to a good return on investment (ROI).
- By taking into account net costs, expected graduate earnings, and the time it’ll take to recoup expenses, we’ve found 10 schools that offer the best ROI.
The “Is college worth it?” calculation has gotten trickier in recent years. On the one hand, the answer is still clearly yes — a college degree is a requirement for most entry-level jobs, and it tends to be even more crucial for getting promotions and climbing the ladder.
On the other hand, the investment (which includes about four years of your life and so much money) doesn’t always pay off. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, about 40% of recent college grads ages 22 to 27 are currently in jobs that don’t require a college degree.
Those numbers may make attending school seem risky — you don’t want to end up trying to pay down college loans without a college paycheck, right?
Picking a college shouldn’t feel like some kind of high-stakes gamble. That’s where we come in — to help you figure out which schools can give you the absolute best return on your investment.
What Is a Good ROI for College?
There are a lot of factors to consider when calculating the potential ROI of a college:
- Opportunity costs: If you spend four (or more) years focusing on school, that’s four (or more) years you aren’t focusing on other enterprises. This means you’re potentially facing an extended period of lost wages, savings, and/or career progress.
Pro tip: One way to minimize your opportunity costs is to pick a flexible and affordable online program that allows you to work and study at the same time.
- Tuition costs: The less money you spend on school, the less debt you’ll have to pay off later. Prioritize good schools — accredited institutions with solid student outcomes — that keep costs low and offer a lot of financial aid.
Pro tip: Schools that offer more grant-based aid instead of loan-based aid are helping cut your costs a lot — instead of kicking the can down the road for you to pay back loans later (with interest), grants are essentially free money.
- Student outcomes: You want to land a good job quickly, pay off your student loans, and move on with your life. This means, in some cases, relatively expensive schools that report high-earning graduates with strong job placement rates might be a better choice than schools with cheaper tuition but less impressive student outcomes.
Good news: We’ve already done all the homework for you by ranking schools with the very best returns on investment in 2023.
Popular Online Programs
Learn about start dates, transferring credits, availability of financial aid, and more by contacting the universities below.
The 10 Best ROI Colleges of 2023
The sooner you can recoup the costs of your education, the quicker you’ll start to see a positive return on your investment. To put together this ranking, we considered the cost of college attendance, average federal grant aid awarded, and future expected earnings to figure out which schools have the best payoff.
Here are 10 stand-out colleges that basically pay for themselves in no time:
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA- 4 year
- Campus + Online
- In-State$10,258
- Out-of-state$31,370
- In-State$14,064
- Out-of-state$29,140
- Retention Rate97%
- Acceptance Rate21%
- Students Enrolled36,302
- Institution TypePublic
- Percent Online Enrollment49%
- AccreditationYes
Colorado School of Mines
- Golden, CO
- 4 year
- Campus + Online
- In-State$16,650
- Out-of-state$37,350
- In-State$16,650
- Out-of-state$37,350
- Retention Rate92%
- Acceptance Rate53%
- Students Enrolled6,628
- Institution TypePublic
- Percent Online Enrollment5%
- AccreditationYes
Golden Gate University
- San Francisco, CA
- 4 year
- Campus + Online
- In-State$15,840
- Out-of-state$15,840
- In-State$19,620
- Out-of-state$19,620
- Retention RateN/A
- Acceptance RateN/A
- Students Enrolled2,432
- Institution TypePrivate
- Percent Online Enrollment67%
- AccreditationYes
Missouri University of Science and Technology
- Rolla, MO
- 4 year
- Campus + Online
- In-State$9,120
- Out-of-state$27,921
- In-State$10,452
- Out-of-state$29,558
- Retention Rate82%
- Acceptance Rate79%
- Students Enrolled8,088
- Institution TypePublic
- Percent Online Enrollment22%
- AccreditationYes
Augusta University
- Augusta, GA
- 4 year
- Campus + Online
- In-State$6,892
- Out-of-state$22,270
- In-State$5,504
- Out-of-state$18,772
- Retention Rate72%
- Acceptance Rate76%
- Students Enrolled8,650
- Institution TypePublic
- Percent Online Enrollment38%
- AccreditationYes
California Polytechnic State University
- San Luis Obispo, CA
- 4 year
- Campus + Online
- In-State$5,742
- Out-of-state$17,622
- In-State$7,176
- Out-of-state$16,680
- Retention Rate94%
- Acceptance Rate28%
- Students Enrolled21,426
- Institution TypePublic
- Percent Online Enrollment8%
- AccreditationYes
South Dakota School of Mines and Technology
- Rapid City, SD
- 4 year
- Campus + Online
- In-State$7,610
- Out-of-state$11,920
- In-State$7,920
- Out-of-state$15,900
- Retention Rate78%
- Acceptance Rate77%
- Students Enrolled2,525
- Institution TypePublic
- Percent Online Enrollment5%
- AccreditationYes
New Jersey Institute of Technology
- Newark, NJ
- 4 year
- Campus + Online
- In-State$14,448
- Out-of-state$30,160
- In-State$20,624
- Out-of-state$30,540
- Retention Rate88%
- Acceptance Rate73%
- Students Enrolled11,518
- Institution TypePublic
- Percent Online Enrollment31%
- AccreditationYes
Oregon Institute of Technology
- Klamath Falls, OR
- 4 year
- Campus + Online
- In-State$8,775
- Out-of-state$27,927
- In-State$12,108
- Out-of-state$20,325
- Retention Rate76%
- Acceptance Rate97%
- Students Enrolled5,313
- Institution TypePublic
- Percent Online Enrollment30%
- AccreditationYes
Stanford University
- Stanford, CA
- 4 year
- Campus + Online
- In-State$52,857
- Out-of-state$52,857
- In-State$52,479
- Out-of-state$52,479
- Retention Rate99%
- Acceptance Rate4%
- Students Enrolled17,249
- Institution TypePrivate
- Percent Online Enrollment5%
- AccreditationYes
Note: The tuition and federal grant aid data for our school rankings comes from the National Center for Education Statistics. Graduate earnings data is sourced from the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard.
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