University of California at Irvine tops Educate to Career’s college rankings, which compares how well colleges improve students’ labor market outcomes. This June, 54 percent of graduates were first-generation college students (and 43 percent came from Asian-American families.)
University of California at Irvine ranked first nationwide in economic diversity in the New York Times’ College Access Index. Photo: Gilberto Cardenas/UCI
In terms of economic value added, some flagship state universities do well, such as University of North Carolina, University of Virginia, UCLA, University of Florida and University of Wisconsin. But ETC’s top 10 list also includes College of New Jersey, College of Saint Benedict and Stonehill College.
ETC analyzes the average net cost of 1,250 colleges, jobs landed by recent graduates with starting salaries and loan default and graduation rates.
ETC also lets collegebound students estimate their probability of earning a degree by entering gender, home state, grade point average and probable major.
For example a California male planning to major in education would have a 48.5 percent shot at graduating within five years with a B+/A average, 39.6 percent with a B average and 27.7 percent with a C+/B- average. Graduation odds are much higher for females: 65.8, 54.7 and 39.8 percent.