It doesn't hurt to be educated on the potential return. Via Flickr A college education is a big investment of both time and money. All you can do is choose the right program, work hard, and hope it pays off.

"College is one of the biggest investments a person will make in their lifetime, so it's important to think of its financial implication," Aubrey Bach, PayScale's head of alumni analytics, tells Business Insider. "PayScale's College ROI Report gives students and their families access to this exact information so that they can decide which school is the best fit for their career goals and their financial situation. We want to help keep students from taking out loans they won't be able to pay back."

With average student-loan debt hovering around $35,000, students and parents can't afford not to consider earning potential postgraduation, she says.

PayScale says, however, that this doesn't mean students should pursue only majors with the highest earning potential or make decisions about where to attend school based solely off college ROI rankings. They need to do what will make them happy — but it doesn't hurt to be educated on their potential return.

As it turns out, some schools are doing a much better job of setting their students up for success in the job market than others.

The top schools for college return on investment (not taking into account financial aid) this year are the California Institute of Technology, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvey Mudd College.

All data used to produce PayScale's Return on Investment Package were collected from employees who successfully completed PayScale's employee survey. To calculate the ROI, PayScale looked at the investment in each college, which includes the cost of attending, as calculated by the cost for a graduate in 2015, on and off campus — and then looked at the 20-year return for each college, which is the expected future income stream. (Click here to read more about the methodology.)

PayScale's list can be sorted by the best value colleges for various majors and career paths, as well as ROI at a school overall. You can see which colleges are providing the best monetary return for their alumni via low cost of attendance, high earning potential, or a combination of the two.

See the full interactive list here, and keep scrolling for the top 22 colleges for your money. The "total cost" and "20 year ROI" figures are for students who live on campus.