The top US colleges that make new graduates rich

While the overall college rankings consider factors like student experiences and graduation rates, the best-salaries list looks only at metrics related to graduate earnings and return on investment.

Prestigious private colleges and universities occupy the upper tier of the list, with Stanford University placing No. 2 and Princeton University, which topped the overall rankings, coming in at No. 3. In total, private universities claimed 36 of the top 50 spots on the salary list.

Beyond MIT, other colleges with robust STEM programs also finished strong: Georgia Tech landed fourth, the California Institute of Technology sixth and Harvey Mudd College seventh. The Missouri University of Science and Technology, the Milwaukee School of Engineering and Michigan Technological University also landed in the top 15.

(You can see our overall ranking of the best colleges in the U.S., with links to the fullBest Salaries rankingand rankings focused on student experiences, value and schools’ impact on their students’ social mobility,here, along with the methodology behind them all.)

Behind the rankings

The criteria for the best-salaries list are twofold. To secure a top position, colleges need to put graduates on lucrative pathways at the beginning of their careers and keep the price of attendance in check.

When measuring financial success, the Journal and research partner Statista looked at income data 10 or 11 years after students entered college, combining that raw earnings data with the extent to which those earnings outpaced expected salaries, which were modeled on research done by the Brookings Institution. To gauge affordability and return on investment, the Journal drew on research from public-policy think tank Third Way, analyzing how long it would take for the salary premiums that graduates earn over the salaries of comparable high-school graduates to cover the estimated total cost of a four-year degree.

Top-ranked MIT excels in each facet of the ranking. Two-thirds of a school’s score on the salary list comes from graduates’medianearly-careerearnings, and MIT graduates have the highest median, $133,793, of any ranked school.The school is also in the top 3% of ranked schools on the value list, the cost/benefit analysis that makes up the remaining third of the score.

Part of what sets MIT apart from other schools for Chris Martinez, a sophomore studying electrical engineering and computer science, is the success stories from alumni, who he says have been surprisingly easy to get hold of when he makes networking calls. In Martinez’s conversations with them, he says, they all tended to hark back to their time at the university and their classes there as a catalyst for what helped them get ahead.

“It always seems like MIT set them on their path, the way they talk about it," Martinez says.

At MIT, paths to successful careers often stem from in-class experiences. Former MIT students contacted for this story were generally quick to credit influential professors and their classroom methods, such as teaching critical thinking.

Sam Florin, a senior studying math with computer science, says, “I think it’s a very analytical student body, a very intellectually curious group of people. If you work around a lot of MIT people, you run into people with similar ways of tackling problems."

A culture of entrepreneurship

At Stanford, meanwhile, students point to its culture of entrepreneurship and the pipeline into tech companies as one reason why its graduates see success early in their careers.

“It’s not uncommon for a Stanford kid to graduate and instantly land a $200,000-plus job at some tech company in the area," says Daniel Sun, a rising senior studying physics, math and music while also working on a coterminal master’s degree in applied and engineering physics.

For Emily Suh, a rising junior studying public policy, the entrepreneurial spirit on campus and the extent to which students collaborate were a differentiation point for Stanford, especially as they relate to career success.

“There are always people advertising their startups and offering doughnuts if you sign up for their app," says Suh. “People are always looking for people to start projects with."

Suh interned with the U.S. Agency for International Development this past summer doing data analytics. She notes that Stanford students can apply for grants to do unpaid internships like she did in 2023 with the American Bar Association, which allowed her to get valuable public-service experience on her résumé without having to sacrifice paid work. She says the public-policy program at Stanford also routinely offers resources about how to best market yourself to nonprofits and other public-service organizations.

While many of the colleges at the top of the list are household names, looking just at salary outcomes for graduates surfaces lesser-known colleges, too, that are greatly increasing the financial prospects of students.

For Cylan Burns, who’s on track to graduate from No. 9 Missouri University of Science and Technology in December with a degree in engineering management, enrolling in the college was an easy choice, in part because he could see the positive outcomes of graduates.

“I wanted in-state tuition, and I’m from Missouri, so the choice is kind of obvious because S&T’s the best for engineering in Missouri and, I’ve heard, the nation," Burns says.

Burns has held three internships and traveled to South America twice to complete rainwater and pipeline systems evaluations with the university’s Engineers Without Borders chapter.

“I’m not really worried about getting a job just because I have that experience," says Burns. “I feel like they’ve set me up really well for success."

Kevin McAllister is a Wall Street Journal reporter in London. He can be reached at kevin.mcallister@wsj.com.