Best Earnings-to-Debt Ratios
This ranking divides median ten-year earnings by median graduate debt, giving a rough multiple: how many dollars of median annual earnings correspond to each dollar of median graduate debt. It is a screening device, not a value judgement — it favours low-debt institutions and high-earning ones simultaneously, and it says nothing about completion risk until you read the completion column we attach to every row, which is exactly the reading we recommend.
The leader in this table is California Institute of Technology of Pasadena, CA, with median earnings of $166,642, median graduate debt of $7,500 and a completion rate of 89.8%. Keep all three of those numbers in view as you read down the list, because this ranking — like every ranking on this site — is sorted on one measure and reported with the other two attached. A table sorted on earnings that hid debt would reward colleges for outcomes their students paid the most to reach; a table sorted on completion that hid earnings would reward easy completion regardless of what the credential leads to. The pairing is the point, and it is why each row links to a full profile rather than ending the conversation here.
| # | Institution | Ranked value | Earnings (10 yr) | Graduate debt | Completion |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California Institute of Technology | 22.2x | $166,642 | $7,500 | 89.8% |
| 2 | Stanford University | 11.7x | $125,340 | $10,750 | 91.6% |
| 3 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 10.9x | $152,553 | $14,000 | 95.7% |
| 4 | Princeton University | 10.8x | $133,523 | $12,400 | 97.4% |
| 5 | Yale University | 9.9x | $118,356 | $11,982 | 96.3% |
| 6 | Cornell University | 9.5x | $113,531 | $12,000 | 94.5% |
| 7 | Duke University | 8.8x | $113,937 | $13,000 | 96.1% |
| 8 | Johns Hopkins University | 8.7x | $104,590 | $12,000 | 93.4% |
| 9 | University of Chicago | 8.7x | $103,872 | $12,000 | 95.0% |
| 10 | Dartmouth College | 8.6x | $111,162 | $13,000 | 95.3% |
| 11 | University of Pennsylvania | 8.1x | $121,687 | $15,000 | 96.9% |
| 12 | University of California-Berkeley | 8.1x | $100,212 | $12,416 | 93.7% |
| 13 | Emory University | 7.8x | $93,897 | $12,000 | 91.0% |
| 14 | Georgetown University | 7.5x | $110,516 | $14,746 | 94.3% |
| 15 | University of California-San Diego | 7.4x | $96,197 | $13,000 | 86.0% |
| 16 | University of California-Davis | 7.2x | $86,999 | $12,038 | 85.7% |
| 17 | University of California-Santa Barbara | 7.0x | $82,568 | $11,776 | 83.6% |
| 18 | Rice University | 7.0x | $90,773 | $13,000 | 95.3% |
| 19 | Harvard University | 6.9x | $121,957 | $17,559 | 97.1% |
| 20 | Brown University | 6.9x | $99,974 | $14,567 | 95.6% |
How far does this ranking actually reach?
It reaches exactly as far as its population: the 125 institutions profiled in this launch edition, which are the largest predominantly bachelor's institutions in the release plus well-known universities included by name. It is not a ranking of all American colleges, and a college absent from the table may simply be absent from the launch set — smaller liberal-arts colleges, specialist schools and many regional institutions will be added in later editions. Within the set, the figures are federal cohort medians: earnings cover federal-aid recipients working and not enrolled at measurement, debt is the median for graduates who borrowed, and completion is measured at 150 percent of normal time. Those definitions are identical across rows, which is what makes the comparison fair, and they are also backward-looking, which is what makes it incomplete.
Using the ranking without being used by it
Pick the two or three rows that survive your real constraints — budget, location, programme, admission realism — and then leave the ranking behind and read those colleges' profiles and field pages properly. Rankings compress a multi-year, six-figure decision into an ordering, and the compression always discards the information that matters most to a specific student: whether the strong earnings come from the major you want, whether the low debt depends on aid your family would not receive, and whether students like you finish. Used as a shortlisting tool, this table saves time. Used as a verdict, it replaces your judgement with a sort key, and no sort key knows your circumstances.
Note on this data: Figures on this page come from the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard release retrieved in October 2026. Earnings cover students who received federal financial aid and were working and not enrolled at the measurement point; they are medians for a defined past cohort, not a promise of what any individual graduate will earn. Check the college and the Scorecard for the most current figures before you decide.