Wall Street Journal’s 2025 Best Colleges In America

SCHOOLS RANKED FOR BEST VALUE

WSJ’s Best Value ranking looks at how quickly the difference between a school’s graduates’ salaries and those of comparable high-school graduates pays back the average net price of four years of study, or “Years to pay off net price.”

Here, Baruch College, CUNY, scored highest here with a perfect 100 for value. It has an average net price of $3,644 with a value added graduate salary of $45,354. Its “years to pay off net price” is three months.

Public schools made up 14 of the top 20 in the category.

WSJ/College Pulse Top 20 For Best Value
Rank	School	State	Type	Score
1	Baruch College, CUNY	NY	Public	100
2	Hunter College, CUNY	NY	Public	99.9
3	Princeton University	NJ	Private	99.8
4	City College of New York, CUNY	NY	Public	99.7
5	Brooklyn College, CUNY	NY	Public	99.5
6	Stanford University	CA	Private	99.3
7	University of Florida	FL	Public	99.1
8	Queens College, CUNY	NY	Public	99
9	Berea College	KY	Private	98.9
10	California State University, Stanislaus	CA	Public	98.8
11	California Institute of Technology	CA	Private	98.6
12	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	MA	Private	98.5
13	Florida State University	FL	Public	98.4
14	California State University, Los Angeles	CA	Public	98.3
15	Georgia Institute of Technology, Main Campus	GA	Public	98.2
16	California State University, Fresno	CA	Public	97.8
17	California State University, Fullerton	CA	Public	97.7
18	Missouri University of Science and Technology	MO	Public	97.5
19	Rice University	TX	Private	97.4
20	University of California, Irvine	CA	Public	97.2