Colleges With the Lowest Graduate Debt
Sorted by median graduate debt from lowest upward, this ranking rewards colleges whose graduates borrow least — through low net price, generous grant aid, wealthy intakes who never needed to borrow, or some combination a single figure cannot separate. That is why earnings and completion are attached: low debt alongside strong completion and solid earnings is a genuinely strong outcome, while low debt at a college few students finish tells a different story.
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 | $7,500 | $166,642 | $7,500 | 89.8% |
| 2 | Stanford University | $10,750 | $125,340 | $10,750 | 91.6% |
| 3 | University of California-Santa Barbara | $11,776 | $82,568 | $11,776 | 83.6% |
| 4 | Yale University | $11,982 | $118,356 | $11,982 | 96.3% |
| 5 | University of Chicago | $12,000 | $103,872 | $12,000 | 95.0% |
| 6 | Johns Hopkins University | $12,000 | $104,590 | $12,000 | 93.4% |
| 7 | Cornell University | $12,000 | $113,531 | $12,000 | 94.5% |
| 8 | Emory University | $12,000 | $93,897 | $12,000 | 91.0% |
| 9 | University of California-Davis | $12,038 | $86,999 | $12,038 | 85.7% |
| 10 | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | $12,086 | $81,094 | $12,086 | 91.1% |
| 11 | Brigham Young University | $12,250 | $80,228 | $12,250 | 80.8% |
| 12 | The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley | $12,250 | $52,947 | $12,250 | 54.7% |
| 13 | Princeton University | $12,400 | $133,523 | $12,400 | 97.4% |
| 14 | University of California-Berkeley | $12,416 | $100,212 | $12,416 | 93.7% |
| 15 | Western Governors University | $12,500 | $76,999 | $12,500 | 50.4% |
| 16 | University of California-Irvine | $12,821 | $83,432 | $12,821 | 86.6% |
| 17 | Duke University | $13,000 | $113,937 | $13,000 | 96.1% |
| 18 | Rice University | $13,000 | $90,773 | $13,000 | 95.3% |
| 19 | Dartmouth College | $13,000 | $111,162 | $13,000 | 95.3% |
| 20 | University of California-San Diego | $13,000 | $96,197 | $13,000 | 86.0% |
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.