PlainCollege

Top 10 US Colleges by 10-Year Former-Student Earnings

Active US colleges ranked by 10-year median earnings for federally aided former students who were working and not enrolled, using PlainCollege's July 2026 Scorecard institution snapshot.

Research period:

Compiled by PlainCollege on 2026-08-01

Research question

Across active US institutions in PlainCollege's Scorecard snapshot, which schools rank highest on 10-year post-entry former-student earnings, and how do their 150%-time completion rates compare?

Methodology

This ranking is calculated live from PlainCollege's current colleges data, sourced from the U.S. Department of Education's College Scorecard School-Level Outcomes Dataset. No figures are hardcoded – every number reflects our most recent import of the source data and updates automatically whenever we refresh it.

The U.S. Department of Education publishes the College Scorecard School-Level Outcomes Dataset on its own release schedule. We import each new release as soon as it's available and replace our copy of the data in full, so a newer government release always supersedes the previous one – readers never see a mix of old and new figures.

Records with missing or suppressed values for the ranked metric are excluded from this ranking rather than shown as zero, since the U.S. Department of Education sometimes withholds a figure for privacy, small-sample, or quality-control reasons. We do not adjust, smooth, or estimate values the source didn't publish; if a later government release revises a figure, the revised value appears here automatically on our next import.

PlainCollege's editorial process reviews each ranking before publication. If you believe a figure attributed to a specific entity is inaccurate, you can request a correction through the contact page – we'll check it against the original government release and correct it if warranted.

Every number on this page traces back to its original U.S. Department of Education source. See the methodology page for the complete source list, data vintage, and how we process government datasets.

Top 10 US Colleges by 10-Year Former-Student Earnings

Live data, updated automatically whenever PlainCollege refreshes its dataset

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What this shows Highly specialized health-sciences and business schools lead this list - raw 10-year earnings favor narrow, high-paying professional tracks over broad undergraduate institutions.

Source U.S. Department of Education

The ranked top 10

Every row below reflects PlainCollege's current data. This page updates automatically whenever we refresh our dataset.

# School City State 10-yr earnings 150%-time completion
1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge MA $143,372 96.2%
2 Samuel Merritt University Oakland CA $143,238 —
3 Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine Philadelphia PA $138,767 —
4 Harvey Mudd College Claremont CA $138,687 92.8%
5 University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in St. Louis Saint Louis MO $137,047 68.5%
6 Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences Albany NY $131,426 68.2%
7 Franklin W Olin College of Engineering Needham MA $129,455 94.2%
8 California Institute of Technology Pasadena CA $128,566 93.8%
9 Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences Boston MA $125,557 62.7%
10 Stanford University Stanford CA $124,080 92.4%

Source: U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard School-Level Outcomes Dataset. Values update automatically whenever PlainCollege refreshes its dataset.

Findings

Top entity in the ranking

The top-ranked record in this dataset is Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with a value of $143,372 on the 10-yr earnings column. The full top-10 set is rendered in the table above. Every value comes from PlainCollege's current dataset; no number is hardcoded into this page. When the source agency publishes a revision, the ranking and the prose around it update automatically.

Distribution shape

The gap between the top-ranked record ($143,372) and the 10th-ranked record ($124,080) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.

Aggregate context

Across the full population behind this ranking, here are the summary statistics: how many records exist in total, the sum of the ranking metric across all qualifying records, and the mean per-record value. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied (records with null or zero values on the ranking metric are excluded). This aggregate row is computed from the same dataset that powers the ranking above.

Source provenance

The records in this ranking originate from the U.S. Department of Education's College Scorecard School-Level Outcomes Dataset. PlainCollege imports each new release from the agency in full, so every number here reflects our most recent import. See the methodology page for the source URL, data vintage, and how we process this dataset.

Why this ranking matters

Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics from adjacent tables, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.

What this analysis cannot tell us

Median earnings reflect federally aided former students who were working and not enrolled ten years after entering the institution; the entry cohort is not limited to graduates. Schools with different program mixes, student populations, and labor markets are not directly comparable, and the 10-year lag does not capture recent institutional changes. Earnings include wages, deferred compensation, and positive self-employment earnings but exclude people without earnings in the measurement year and students who did not receive federal aid. The completion-rate column uses a separate full-time, first-time cohort, so it should not be treated as the denominator of the earnings field.

Secondary cut from the same source

Average net price at the same top-earnings schools, pairs cost with outcome

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What this shows Several of the top earners above also carry a high net price - a strong outcome does not automatically mean a strong value once the cost side is counted.

Source U.S. Department of Education

Related data

Sources