The 20 best colleges for your money
With this in mind, Money Magazine released its 2015-16 list of top colleges to give parents and students the true financial impact of college.
The ranking looks to quantitative data points such as the price of a degree and career earnings to give a picture of the financial outcomes of students at four-year colleges and universities around the country.
And unlike the US World and News Report, another big name publication in college rankings, there is no academic peer assessment component of the ranking, arguably removing subjectivity from their ranking equation.
Here are the top 20 schools on Money Magazine's list:
1. Stanford University - Stanford, California
2. Babson College - Babson Park, Massachusetts
3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Cambridge, Massachusetts
5. California Institute of Technology - Pasadena, California
6. Harvard University - Cambridge, Massachusetts
6. Harvey Mudd College - Claremont, California
8. Maine Maritime Academy - Castine, Maine
9. Amherst College - Amherst, Massachusetts
9. Cooper Union For The Advancement of Science and Art - New York, New York
9. University of California at Berkeley - Berkeley, California
12. University of Pennsylvania - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
13. University of California-Irvine - Irvine, California
14. Rice University - Houston, Texas
15. Bentley University - Waltham, Massachusetts
17. University of Virginia - Charlottesville, Virginia
18. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor - Ann Arbor, Michigan
19. Claremont McKenna College - Claremont, California
20. Texas A&M University-College Station - College Station, Texas
Check out Money Magazine's full list here >>