By Rose Cahalan in Promote & Protect, Special on |

There are many ways to measure the value of a UT degree. One of the most practical, of course, is measuring how much money alumni make. And when it comes to that metric, we’re not too shabby.

A new ranking by SmartMoney, the Wall Street Journal‘s personal finance site, collected median salaries of both young alumni and mid-career professionals. Then the study’s editors divided those salaries by the cost of tuition and fees at each school—taking into account the return on a degree’s investment.

The result: UT came in at No. 3, just behind the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Florida. The median salary for young Longhorns was $48,800, a number that climbed to $90,800 for mid-career alumni.

Overall, public universities came out on top in the SmartMoney ranking, likely because their tuition is much lower than that of many private schools. Only one of the top 20 schools in the ranking was private (Princeton University). UT was the only Texas university on the list.

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