Which Colleges Are Doing The Most For Students With The Least?

Forbes released its annual college rankings Tuesday, and it turns out that going to an Ivy League school or a public flagship university is not the only route to financial success. Many less famous public colleges and universities also provide significant earnings gains to graduates. These schools offer economic mobility while also accepting most students who apply. Additionally, they enroll far more students from first-generation and low-income backgrounds than schools best known for rejecting more applicants than they accept.

As the price of higher education has risen and public funding has decreased, it has become more and more important for students to know whether college will pay off financially. A Harvard degree is very valuable, but most of Harvard’s students started wealthy. Creating economic mobility for students who don’t have much money to begin with is a lot harder.

When looking at rankings, you can use all kinds of metrics to judge whether a school is doing a good job. One that is particularly important is whether college will pay off compared to the price, and specifically whether it usually pays off for someone with limited financial resources. In other words, does the school push students with less into higher income brackets?

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