Wall Street Journal’s 2025 Best Colleges In America

SCHOOLS RANKED BY SALARY IMPACT

Here, five of the top 20 schools are public institutions, including Georgia Institute of Technology which ranked No. 9 overall.

Still, the Ivies and big brand powerhouses still dominate. Massachusetts Institute of Technology comes out on top with a salary score of 99.3.

The salary impact rating looks at the impact the school has on its graduates’ salaries in relation to the cost of attending. While the schools at the top generally have high price tags, the salaries their graduates earn 10 years later make up for the high cost.

Below, you can see the 20 schools with the highest salary impact from WSJ’s ranking.

WSJ/College Pulse Top 20 For Salary Impact
Rank	School	State	Type	Score
1	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	MA	Private	99.3
2	Stanford University	CA	Private	98.4
3	Princeton University	NJ	Private	97.9
4	Georgia Institute of Technology, Main Campus	GA	Public	97.6
5	University of Pennsylvania	PA	Private	97.4
6	California Institute of Technology	CA	Private	96.6
7	Harvey Mudd College	CA	Private	96.6
8	Babson College	MA	Private	96.2
9	Missouri University of Science and Technology	MO	Public	96
10	Carnegie Mellon University	PA	Private	95.1
11	Claremont McKenna College	CA	Private	94.9
12	Milwaukee School of Engineering	WI	Private	94.7
13	Lehigh University	PA	Private	94.6
14	Bentley University	MA	Private	94.5
15	Michigan Technological University	MI	Public	94.2
16	Colorado School of Mines	CO	Public	94.1
17	San José State University	CA	Public	93.7
18	Yale University	CT	Private	93.5
19	Kettering University	MI	Private	92.8
20	Manhattan College	NY	Private	92.8

SCHOOLS RANKED BY SALARY IMPACT

WSJ/College Pulse Top 20 For Salary Impact

Rank

School

State

Type

Score