Georgetown has been doing interesting studies lately of colleges, such as their one from last summer that if the 200 most prestigious colleges just drafted high school students in order of test scores, top colleges would whiter and maler.

And here’s a new one from Georgetown rather like Raj Chetty’s that I wrote up in Taki’s in 2017.

Here’s Georgetown’s rankings of top 50 undergrad colleges in terms of median earnings after ten years:

Institution State Institution type Median 10-yr earnings Net price Graduation rate 1 Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences NY Private nonprofit $124,700 $29,761 74% 2 St Louis College of Pharmacy MO Private nonprofit $124,100 $30,274 72% 3 Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences MA Private nonprofit $116,000 $37,779 76% 4 Massachusetts Institute of Technology MA Private nonprofit $104,700 $20,771 93% 5 Babson College MA Private nonprofit $96,100 $35,540 91% 6 Maine Maritime Academy ME Public $95,600 $23,460 66% 7 Stanford University CA Private nonprofit $94,000 $13,261 94% 8 Georgetown University DC Private nonprofit $93,500 $30,107 94% 9 University of the Sciences PA Private nonprofit $91,600 $31,454 71% 10 Harvard University MA Private nonprofit $89,700 $14,327 97% 11 Stevens Institute of Technology NJ Private nonprofit $89,200 $36,620 83% 12 Harvey Mudd College CA Private nonprofit $88,800 $34,464 95% 13 United States Merchant Marine Academy NY Public $88,100 $6,758 78% 14 Bentley University MA Private nonprofit $86,900 $35,671 90% 15 Massachusetts Maritime Academy MA Public $86,600 $18,027 75% 16 California Institute of Technology CA Private nonprofit $85,900 $24,245 91% 17 University of Pennsylvania PA Private nonprofit $85,900 $24,242 95% 18 Colorado School of Mines CO Public $84,900 $25,710 77% 19 Worcester Polytechnic Institute MA Private nonprofit $84,900 $40,376 87% 20 Duke University NC Private nonprofit $84,400 $35,737 95% 21 Carnegie Mellon University PA Private nonprofit $83,600 $31,102 89% 22 Columbia University in the City of New York NY Private nonprofit $83,300 $24,231 95% 23 Yale University CT Private nonprofit $83,200 $18,627 98% 24 California State University Maritime Academy CA Public $82,900 $16,416 63% 25 SUNY Maritime College NY Public $82,800 $18,413 60% 26 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute NY Private nonprofit $82,000 $34,839 83% 27 Lehigh University PA Private nonprofit $81,900 $34,212 87% 28 Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology IN Private nonprofit $80,900 $36,906 82% 29 Kettering University MI Private nonprofit $80,500 $37,247 57% 30 DigiPen Institute of Technology WA Private for-profit $80,200 $35,538 41% 31 Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus GA Public $79,100 $13,291 86% 32 University of Notre Dame IN Private nonprofit $78,400 $28,768 95% 33 Villanova University PA Private nonprofit $77,900 $41,858 90% 34 Cornell University NY Private nonprofit $77,200 $31,230 94% 35 Washington and Lee University VA Private nonprofit $76,100 $24,761 92% 36 Tufts University MA Private nonprofit $75,800 $32,620 93% 37 Dartmouth College NH Private nonprofit $75,500 $30,421 96% 38 Princeton University NJ Private nonprofit $74,700 $9,327 97% 39 Case Western Reserve University OH Private nonprofit $74,600 $35,316 82% 40 University of Southern California CA Private nonprofit $74,000 $30,232 92% 41 Johns Hopkins University MD Private nonprofit $73,200 $33,586 93% 42 Claremont McKenna College CA Private nonprofit $72,900 $26,933 91% 43 Santa Clara University CA Private nonprofit $72,600 $33,738 89% 44 Boston College MA Private nonprofit $72,500 $34,550 92% 45 Fairfield University CT Private nonprofit $72,100 $36,929 82% 46 Clarkson University NY Private nonprofit $72,000 $30,563 72% 47 University of the Pacific CA Private nonprofit $71,700 $29,171 69% 48 Milwaukee School of Engineering WI Private nonprofit $71,300 $21,328 65% 49 Missouri University of Science and Technology MO Public $71,200 $14,473 64% 50 College of the Holy Cross MA Private nonprofit $71,000 $34,159 92%

As I mentioned in my Chetty write-up, the top-ranked pharmacy schools have 6-year programs, so this might not be a fair comparison. The #1 normal 4 year college is MIT, which isn’t terribly surprising. Babson, a business-oriented college in suburban Boston ranks quite high.

Masculine high end trade schools like Maine Maritime Academy and Colorado School of Mines also do well.

Also, colleges that only offer STEM majors do better than ones that offer a mix of STEM and liberal arts majors. For example, graduates of the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia get paid more on average than graduates of its affiliate University of the Arts. If you combined them, the merged institution would be more average.

Some of these figures have to do with cost of living of where grads tend to wind up: e.g., Boston is an expensive place, so graduates of Boston colleges tend to be paid a lot so they can afford to buy a Boston-area home.

The Net Price column is interesting: Princeton, Stanford, and Harvard are listed as being exceptionally cheap. Because of their huge endowments, they offer generous financial aid (i.e., tuition discounts), but I hadn’t realized how nice it is financially to go to an HYPS school.

There is only one for-profit college in the top 50: DigiPen Institute of Technology in Redmond, WA for computer game designers.

It’s interesting how capitalism doesn’t work very well for higher education. My impression is that not-for-profits like Yale and U. of Michigan tend to be more exclusive at keeping out the riff-raff, while for-profit colleges can seldom resist letting in more warm bodies.

For example, in Los Angeles there are a million nightschools teaching screenwriting. But if you can, you definitely want to get into the programs of one of the prestigious not-for-profits like USC because the average quality of the students is so much higher. A big part of taking these courses is getting feedback from other students, and the jokes and plot pitches your classmates suggest for your script are better at USC than at many for-profit courses because USC turns away lots of people who have the money, but the business-based courses reject fewer applicants.

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