The Best Colleges for Your Money

Number One on this year’s list is a school you probably never heard of: SUNY Maritime College. Part of New York’s state university system and located in the decidedly unglamorous Throgs Neck neighborhood of the Bronx, tiny Maritime (current enrollment: 1,860) counts among its alumni several CEOs, astronaut Scott Kelly, and Joseph Hazelwood, who captained the ill-fated Exxon Valdez.

The school returns a stellar 13.2% annually on grads’ investment, PayScale reports. Total for all 4 years there is a relatively modest $89,000, while alumni earn an average of $139,000 in mid-career, for a total 20-year ROI of $945,000.

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Compare that to Princeton, which ranks third on this year’s list. Four years there will set you back $224,000, yet annual ROI is just 8.2%. Mid-career grads make an average of $128,000, for a 20-year ROI of $820,000. As for Harvard, it’s in 10^th place, with a $235,000 price tag and a 20-year return of $739,000 — $206,000 less than Maritime.

Granted, much of the disparity is most likely because virtually everybody at Maritime studies some type of engineering. On the entire ranking of 1,000 colleges and universities, those whose grads earn the most are schools offering “a limited set of in-demand majors — engineering, computer science, statistics, and math,” notes Katie Bardaro, PayScale’s vice president of data analytics. Fifteen of the 20 best-paying undergraduate majors in the report are engineering-related, with petroleum engineering (average annual pay: $172,000) in the top spot.

Thinking of pursuing an MBA? Almost three-quarters (74%) of graduate business majors lead to “six-figure median mid-career salaries,” PayScale says, but your major matters here too. MBAs in human resources and accounting earn the lowest pay. The highest-paid MBAs are in strategy, followed by entrepreneurship and finance.