BANGALORE: The very purpose of attending college is attaining a potential job and a fat paycheck.

 Albeit the question lies as to whether colleges are delivering successful results or not, students on the other hand believe that candidates holding a degree are far more successful than those who don’t thus ensuring a good pay slip over the course of their career.

Most often than not, the prevailing issues hovers on choosing the right schools to brunch out one’s potential, this followed by degrees from a list of universities are often deemed more valuable  in the eyes of  employers.

Regardless of the superior training or education a student receives, the brand name of the college is what matters more to the hiring manager. For instance, a Harvard graduate is more likely to receive a high-paying job than a graduate from a public state college, reports Cheatsheet.

While these factors are unfortunate but true, most people are now showing a growing concern as to which schools provide the ultimate earnings potential for its graduates? Over a vast variety of colleges in and universities in the U.S. the answer has finally been revealed.  

A newest study from The Brookings Institute has identified the high ranking institute narrowing it down to the top 10 from a list of over 7,000 institutes. The study takes in the “value added” earnings levels of alumni’s from four-year colleges and universities and is at their mid-career level.

Authors Jonathan Rothwell and Siddharth Kulkarni had their own unique approach rather than blindly following other college ranking systems, which often oversees the several schools that favor certain qualities.

“Popular rankings of college quality, such as those produced by U.S. News, Forbes, and Money, focus only on a small fraction of the nation’s four-year colleges and tend to reward highly selective institutions over those that contribute the most to student success,” the authors wrote.

On determining their own method of ranking they take three major factors into account. “Drawing on a variety of government and private data sources, this report presents a provisional analysis of college value-added with respect to the economic success of the college’s graduates, measured by the incomes graduates earn, the occupations in which they work, and their loan repayment rates,” the report said. “A college’s value-added measures the difference between actual alumni outcomes (like salaries) and predicted outcomes for institutions with similar characteristics and students.”

An insight about the authors work discloses an expected list of household-name school like Stanford and MIT. Nonetheless a significant amount emerged from mall universities and colleges that don’t hold brand recognition. This goes without saying that the quality of education overrides the brand-name appeal.

The full list presented of the top ten institutions goes alongside the percentage of “value added,” in comparison to an anticipated mid-career salary with the actual mid-career salary.

Top-ranking institution, California Institute of Technology, offers graduates a whopping 49 pct “value added” salary, wherein towards the mid-career salaries is expected to top $126,000 annually. Following closely behind is Colgate University at 46pct with MIT at 45 pct in third. A couple of lesser-known schools like the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology make it to the list at 44pct and Carleton College at 43pct.

However, one unique feature about the list is that it comprises of institutions that mainly cater towards science, engineering and technology fields. With the bloom in these respective fields over the last few decades, it is a sure reason to expect the earnings of degree holders to witness salary hike.

  As compiled by The Brookings Institute, here are the top ten institutes with “value added” that includes a comparison of estimate and actual mid-career salaries:

[Table] -Source: Brookings Institute

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