PlainCollege

Top 10 US Colleges by 10-Year Graduate Earnings

PlainCollege ranks active US colleges by the 10-year median post-enrollment earnings of their graduates, refreshed live whenever the College Scorecard publishes a new data vintage.

Research period:

Compiled by PlainCollege Editorial on 2026-05-16

Research question

Across active US institutions reporting to the federal College Scorecard, which schools rank highest on 10-year post-enrollment graduate earnings, and how do their 6-year 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 team 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 Graduate 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 6-yr completion
1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge MA $143,372 —
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 —
5 University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in St. Louis Saint Louis MO $137,047 —
6 Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences Albany NY $131,426 —
7 Franklin W Olin College of Engineering Needham MA $129,455 —
8 California Institute of Technology Pasadena CA $128,566 —
9 Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences Boston MA $125,557 —
10 Stanford University Stanford CA $124,080 —

Source: U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard School-Level Outcomes Dataset. Values update automatically whenever PlainCollege refreshes its dataset. 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 graduates who received federal financial aid and were employed and not enrolled in further education ten years after starting their program. Schools with heavy professional-school programs (medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, engineering) tend to rank near the top because those programs feed high-wage occupations, comparisons across schools with very different program mixes are not apples-to-apples. The 10-year window means the most recent vintage measures the earnings of students who started college over a decade ago; recent changes to program offerings or admissions selectivity have not yet shown up in these numbers. Earnings exclude graduates who did not receive federal aid, the self-employed, and those whose tax records the Department of Education was unable to match. The completion-rate column reflects the fraction of full-time first-time students who completed within six years; part-time and transfer students are tracked separately.

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