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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The focus on LACs is misplaced if you are looking at career earnings and ROI.  Size per se is not a major factor.  Harvey Mudd has 900 undergraduates but has a 40 year NPV (income - cost with time factored in) of $1.851M.  That is higher than Penn, Yale, Columbia, Duke, Princeton, Cornell, Dartmouth, Brown, etc.

What matters most through near to mid-term in particular is choice of major.  Engineering majors in particular earn more than the average major during this period.   (Over their entire career, engineers make over 1.5X as much as the average and it can be higher depending on on specialty See chart in https://www.businessinsider.com/college-majors-biggest-lifetime-earnings-2014-9 .)  Harvey Mudd has a very high percentage of STEM majors.

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Here is where the ROI data came from:  https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/collegeroi/

Again, a large percentage of the differences in ROI are explained by the mix of majors at each school.  Take Georgia Tech, for instance.  It has a 40 year NPV of $1.729M, which is actually higher than Princeton at $1.642M.  But Georgia Tech has about 70% of students majoring in engineering vs 17% at Princeton.  Georgia Tech is a great school, but it would not surprise me if majors in the same subjects at Princeton make more than Georgia Tech graduates in most majors.  The difference again is mix of majors.  Chemical, Aerospace, Energy, Computer, and Electrical engineering graduates make about 2X as much or more as the average major in median lifetime earnings.

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