We started with a list of thousands of colleges in the United States that graduate according to the Carnegie Classification of Higher Education, a system of higher education that focuses on the type of degree awarded, research output, and distribution of colleges.
We select research universities, graduate universities and colleges, undergraduate colleges, and universities that offer professional courses in engineering, business, and engineering. Evaluation (the Integrated Higher Education Data System and College Scorecard), a Seattle-based software and data company and a Washington, D.C.-based public policy think tank, says that “
one person leads another.” Schools that announced they would close were not included in the decision, nor were schools with fewer than 300 undergraduate students. We also eliminated five federal military academies from the final 500; while they generally perform well by our metrics, they perform differently than the other schools on our list.
We used Payscale and College Income Scores to determine which schools graduate the most. Using Payscale, we look at the median earnings of graduates six and 10 years after graduation. We extracted data from the College Scorecard on the median earnings of graduates six and 10 years after they first enrolled in college. Payscale relies on self-reported data,
which can lead to biased data; graduates who are employed and satisfied with their income are more likely to respond. The College Scorecard collects data only on federal student loan borrowers, not all graduates. We weight one of four income factors at 5%
Two variables in the College Scorecard help us measure college student debt. First, we divide each borrower’s average federal debt by the percentage of students who have federal student loans minus the percentage of students who have received it for college, which we call the Debt and Loan Percentage Index. Second, we looked at each college’s five-year repayment rate, which is the percentage of graduates who paid off at least $1 of their principal within five years of entering
repayment. Both variables are weighted at 7.5%, for a total of 15%. , other students who took a leave of absence for health or other reasons. Ten percent of our GPA is based on each student’s academic year, and the other 5 percent is based on the academic performance of Pell Grant recipients, which is used as leave for low-income students at most schools. We compared Pell graduation rates to the percentage of Pell Grant recipients at each institution to reward colleges
where a larger percentage of students earn less money. This list is designed to measure the leadership and entrepreneurial skills of college graduates. To do this, we count the individuals from each school who appear on the Forbes 30 Under 30, Forbes 400, Self-Made Richest Women,
and Most Powerful Women lists. We also count the bachelor’s degrees of the president, the Supreme Court, Congress, and current members of the administration, as well as the bachelor’s degrees of the nonprofit organizations that have most recently received the MacArthur Award,
Nobel Prize, Breakthrough Prize, Lasker Award, Fields Medal, and Academy Awards, Tony Awards, NAACP Awards, Guggenheim Awards, Presidential Medals, Pulitzers, and Major Sports All-Star Awards. This measure is weighted at 15%. A third method calculates this number by dividing the total cost of earning a college degree by the student’s postsecondary earnings multiplied by the typical salary for high school graduates in their state. This difference is weighted at 10%.
We also include a 5% weighted value for money for low-income students. Students have moved down. We usually evaluate this index using data from the past three years, but with Covid-19 causing many disruptions and delays, we have decided to remove 2020 from this index. Instead, we average the savings rates for 2019, 2021, and 2022 for this year. This difference is weighted at 10%.
First, we count recent graduates from each institution who received Fulbright, Truman, Goldwater, and Rhodes Scholarships. Second, we use data from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics to determine the average number of students who earn a PhD from a university. It is measured based on university enrollment over the past three years. Each measure is weighted 5%.