00:00Today on Forbes, the 25 Colleges with the Highest Payoff.
00:07College is an investment, and one more and more Americans are leery of.
00:12Most now say a college degree isn't worth taking on student debt.
00:16A new Gallup poll finds a third of Americans, triple the number of a decade ago,
00:21have little to no confidence in higher education,
00:24with costs, along with politics, underlying this growing disenchantment.
00:29So here's the good news.
00:31There are lots of schools on Forbes' America's Top Colleges list,
00:34which was just released this week,
00:36that actually produce an excellent return on investment.
00:39This is about more than just the sticker price.
00:42Going to a cheap school that produces lousy job prospects
00:45and taking on even a few thousand dollars in debt,
00:48plus the lost time you spent studying, may not be worth it.
00:51Pick an expensive school that reduces the net cost with generous aid
00:55and catapults its graduates into lucrative careers
00:58and your investment could pay off, big time.
01:02To determine which of Forbes' Top 500 Colleges
01:05offer the best return on investment, or ROI,
01:08we looked at each school's price-to-earnings premium,
01:11a calculation by the think tank Third Way
01:14that shows the number of years it takes graduates
01:16to recoup the net cost of their education.
01:19We also factored in the school's debt-to-percent borrowed index,
01:22a figure that Forbes created for the Top 500 Colleges list
01:26that takes into account how many students take on debt to attend the school
01:30and how much debt those graduates leave with.
01:33Combined, these measures gave us 25 schools
01:37that offer a low-debt education and promise high earnings potential.
01:41In other words, a high average ROI.
01:44Some of them come as no surprise.
01:47Science and technology heavy hitters Stanford University
01:50and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for example,
01:53both offer their students stellar ROIs.
01:56Others, like the Nine-City University of New York,
02:00or CUNY, schools on this list,
02:02are less well-known, particularly outside of New York.
02:06Here are a few of the schools on this list.
02:09Princeton University continues to take the number one spot
02:13not only in the Top 500,
02:15but also in terms of students' return on investment.
02:18The New Jersey Ivy League University
02:20offers nearly 40 majors and certificate programs.
02:23The most popular majors are computer science, economics, and public policy.
02:28Over the years, more graduates have gone into the finance and technology sectors
02:33than any other industry,
02:35with business, consulting, and hedge funds also being well-represented.
02:39The median salary for a Princeton graduate
02:42ten years after receiving their diploma is just under $200,000,
02:46and the university's generous financial aid,
02:49backed by a huge $34 billion endowment,
02:52ensures that students graduate with little to no debt.
02:56Stanford University in California
02:59is known nationwide for its focus on STEM programs
03:02and its pipeline to high-paying Silicon Valley jobs.
03:06Many students end up in the technology and startup space,
03:09and within a few years of graduating,
03:11the median Stanford grad brings home $100,000 or more per year.
03:16Only around 5% of students take out federal loans to attend the university,
03:20with the median loan amount totaling $9,851.
03:26CUNY City College of New York, known as CCNY,
03:30is the first of nine City University of New York schools on this list,
03:34and the oldest in the 25-college public system.
03:37It was also the first free public institution of higher education in America.
03:41It's no longer free,
03:43but undergraduate tuition for New York State residents is just $6,930 a year.
03:49Psychology, biology, and computer science
03:52are popular majors at the public college in midtown Manhattan,
03:55and graduates recoup their net costs in just six months,
03:58according to Third Way data.
04:01California Institute of Technology graduates
04:04earn a median salary of $132,140 six years after enrolling,
04:10and for many bachelor's degree holders, two years after graduating.
04:14The science- and technology-oriented school in Pasadena, California
04:18offers its graduates a price-to-earnings premium of $0.73,
04:23meaning it takes graduates about nine months to recoup the cost of their education.
04:28For full coverage, and to see the entire list of 25,
04:32plus the whole America's Top Colleges list,
04:35check out Francesca Walton's piece on Forbes.com.
04:39This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes. Thanks for tuning in.
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