Welcome to College Value

They say college is a credential. Fine, let's treat it like one. What do you get for your money? Can we measure it?
Yup, we can. If you like that idea start here:

  • Colleges For You - Find the colleges where grads have the highest earnings and lowest debt. Narrow it down by location and SAT score.
  • Majors For You - Not all degrees have the same outcome! A nursing grad from two different schools might expect much different outcomes! Find the majors at colleges where grads have the highest earnings and lowest debt. Compare different majors against earning potential. Narrow it down by location and SAT score.
Just want to see the top schools and majors regardless of location and match? We've got that too.
  • College Rankings - The best and worst colleges based on earnings and debt.
  • Major Rankings - The best and worst college majors based on earnings and debt.

The Choice

Should you go to college? What do you study? How much will it cost?


There's a lot of questions around college right now, from the growing number of administrators compared to faculty, the country-club style amenities on campus, the equality of different segments student populations, the DEI initiatives, the forced-remote landscape from the Covid pandemic, and the sheer ballooning cost.


Most importantly, there's a question of value. When so many students are going into tremendous debt for the hope of a better job - and consequently, more financial freedom - it's perfectly reasonable to ask: is it worth it?


College in the modern world is a cost/benefit analysis. We spend money to be educated for a purpose, and we need to do a better job at considering the outcomes. Different majors and colleges differ greatly in terms of both the costs and the estimated payoffs. And that's why this place exists. The Department of Education has loads of this data, it's just hard to find and parse. And a lot of it is missing, so keep that in mind too. There's more about the data here.


The original thesis behind building this was that considering either colleges OR majors isn't enough. For instance, a nursing degree from Wilmington Univeristy is not the same as one from Quinnipiac University. A graduate from either can expect to earn about $72,000 a year, but the Quinnipiac grad will have $77,000 in debt and the Wilmington U. grad will have less than $10k.


There's plenty to look at for both different fields and colleges. Our goal is to help you explore what it really means to get the most out of college, knowing that every dollar matters. College isn't one-size-fits-all and the needs and goals of every student are going to be different. We want to get you the data you need. There's plenty of other college review sites. We think they all suck. They're built on advertising to serve college admissions rather than prospective students. This is an experiment, an MVP, based on the idea of measuring school based on good outcomes. Let us know what you think!

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Have Ideas?

This is going to evolve a lot over time. We're looking for more data to incorporate and more stories to tell! If you have ideas or things you'd like to see, drop a line!