How Rankings Are Calculated

PlainCollege rankings are based entirely on data from the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard. Unlike editorial rankings, our lists use a single transparent metric per category. Earnings rankings use median income 10 years after enrollment. Selectivity uses official admission rates. Value is calculated as median earnings minus average net price. Size uses total enrollment.

Each ranking is a different lens on the same underlying College Scorecard dataset. The Scorecard is the U.S. Department of Education's annual file of institution-level outcomes, drawing on IPEDS enrollment surveys, the National Student Loan Data System for federal-aid usage, and de-identified IRS tax records for earnings 6 and 10 years after enrollment. Because the Scorecard reports a single canonical value for each metric per institution, our rankings are reproducible, you can download the raw file from collegescorecard.ed.gov and recompute the same lists yourself.

We deliberately avoid composite or weighted rankings. Each list ranks on one metric so that the meaning is unambiguous: the highest-earning list is the schools whose former federal-aid students reported the highest median income at 10 years after enrollment, full stop. We do not blend earnings with selectivity, prestige, or curated indices because composite scores hide the underlying tradeoffs and make it harder to evaluate whether a ranking matches the question you are asking. Use the rankings as starting points, then drill into individual institutional profiles for the full context, graduation rates, debt loads, demographics, programs offered, and net price.

Rankings inherit the data's limitations. Earnings reflect federal-aid recipients only, which means schools with high full-pay enrollment may have under-reported earnings relative to their actual graduate population. Admission rates are reported by institutions to IPEDS and can lag the most recent application cycle. Net price is averaged over students who received aid and may not reflect any particular family's expected cost. Total enrollment includes graduate students at universities that report at the institution level rather than the campus level. Always read the methodology footnote on each ranking page for the exact computation rule.

We also publish topical rankings beyond the four core categories, top colleges with the highest graduation rates, lowest student debt, and lowest net price for low-income students. These topical lists answer common research questions and surface schools that excel on metrics other than the headline earnings or selectivity numbers. Where federal data permits, we group these into cohort comparisons so you can see how a community college compares to a regional university or how a for-profit institution compares to a public flagship on the same outcome.