These 20 colleges give you the biggest bang for your buck

Spencer Pratt/ GettyPayscale, a compensation data company, published it's 2017 College Return on Investment report, naming the 20 best value colleges in the U.S.

Many of the schools specialize in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) programs. Additionally, the majority of these schools are located by the coasts, 10 of the top 20 schools are public, and some repeat in the list due to in-state and out-of-state tuition price differences.

The list shows that the important factors in education return on investment are: major, location, and debt burden. The company uses data from 54 million salary profiles, according to the company's website.

Here are the top value colleges according to Payscale: