Best Value / By Major

Best Value Colleges for Apparel and Textiles

Schools ranked by payback period — how quickly you recoup your investment through higher earnings.

50

Schools Ranked

$35,970

Avg. Earnings

4.7 yrs

Best Payback

3,142

Graduates

How we calculate value: Payback = (4 years of net price) / (major earnings - $35k baseline). A 2-year payback means you recoup your investment in 2 years through higher earnings vs. not attending college.

#	School	Net Price/yr	Major Earnings	Payback
1	University of Delaware Newark, DE · Public	$17,260	$49,555	4.7 yrs
2	Indiana University-Bloomington Bloomington, IN · Public	$12,369	$45,249	4.8 yrs
3	University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI · Public	$10,364	$43,426	4.9 yrs
4	Fashion Institute of Technology New York, NY · Public	$12,228	$43,638	5.7 yrs
5	Northern Illinois University Dekalb, IL · Public	$13,778	$42,682	7.2 yrs
6	The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX · Public	$16,134	$43,575	7.5 yrs
7	Ohio State University-Main Campus Columbus, OH · Public	$13,273	$42,012	7.6 yrs
8	Florida State University Tallahassee, FL · Public	$11,506	$40,455	8.4 yrs
9	University of California-Davis Davis, CA · Public	$14,193	$41,565	8.6 yrs
10	University of Arkansas Fayetteville, AR · Public	$16,256	$42,309	8.9 yrs
11	University of Missouri-Columbia Columbia, MO · Public	$13,715	$41,007	9.1 yrs
12	University of Northern Iowa Cedar Falls, IA · Public	$15,287	$41,565	9.3 yrs
13	San Francisco State University San Francisco, CA · Public	$16,065	$40,768	11.1 yrs
14	Iowa State University Ames, IA · Public	$14,641	$39,585	12.8 yrs
15	North Dakota State University-Main Campus Fargo, ND · Public	$16,071	$39,909	13.1 yrs
16	Kansas State University Manhattan, KS · Public	$16,868	$39,729	14.3 yrs
17	University of Rhode Island Kingston, RI · Public	$18,131	$38,829	18.9 yrs
18	Centenary University Hackettstown, NJ · Private	$19,911	$39,009	19.9 yrs
19	Rhode Island School of Design Providence, RI · Private	$36,981	$41,937	21.3 yrs
20	Ohio University-Main Campus Athens, OH · Public	$23,509	$38,829	24.6 yrs
21	Oklahoma State University-Main Campus Stillwater, OK · Public	$14,127	$37,208	25.6 yrs
22	University of North Carolina at Greensboro Greensboro, NC · Public	$13,214	$37,054	25.7 yrs
23	East Carolina University Greenville, NC · Public	$16,654	$37,208	30.2 yrs
24	Oregon State University-Cascades Campus Bend, OR · Public	$20,523	$36,848	44.4 yrs
25	Oregon State University Corvallis, OR · Public	$21,716	$36,848	47 yrs
26	Central Washington University Ellensburg, WA · Public	$17,235	$36,042	66.2 yrs
27	The University of Alabama Tuscaloosa, AL · Public	$21,649	$35,327	264.8 yrs
28	University of Kentucky Lexington, KY · Public	$16,708	$34,847	N/A
29	Auburn University Auburn, AL · Public	$23,468	$33,993	N/A
30	SUNY Oneonta Oneonta, NY · Public	$18,271	$34,526	N/A
31	University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Minneapolis, MN · Public	$12,911	$31,133	N/A
32	Appalachian State University Boone, NC · Public	$13,769	$31,423	N/A
33	Colorado State University-Fort Collins Fort Collins, CO · Public	$15,086	$31,855	N/A
34	Framingham State University Framingham, MA · Public	$19,068	$31,852	N/A
35	Western Michigan University Kalamazoo, MI · Public	$20,840	$33,637	N/A
36	Savannah College of Art and Design Savannah, GA · Private	$44,631	$33,993	N/A
37	Missouri State University-Springfield Springfield, MO · Public	$15,950	$31,719	N/A
38	California State Polytechnic University-Pomona Pomona, CA · Public	$15,958	$33,993	N/A
39	Washington State University Pullman, WA · Public	$14,233	$32,925	N/A
40	University of Nebraska-Lincoln Lincoln, NE · Public	$15,394	$34,420	N/A
41	University of Akron Main Campus Akron, OH · Public	$18,860	$31,670	N/A
42	Wayne State University Detroit, MI · Public	$13,612	$30,409	N/A
43	Western Kentucky University Bowling Green, KY · Public	$17,490	$26,585	N/A
44	Middle Tennessee State University Murfreesboro, TN · Public	$14,498	$27,536	N/A
45	Georgia Southern University Statesboro, GA · Public	$16,181	$27,126	N/A
46	Indiana State University Terre Haute, IN · Public	$15,588	$29,685	N/A
47	Southern Illinois University-Carbondale Carbondale, IL · Public	$14,499	$23,456	N/A
48	University of Hawaii at Manoa Honolulu, HI · Public	$15,183	$26,519	N/A
49	Liberty University Lynchburg, VA · Private	$27,305	$20,687	N/A
50	University of Idaho Moscow, ID · Public	$13,998	$33,993	N/A

Top Earners in Apparel and Textiles

See schools ranked by earnings alone, without considering cost.

Best Value Rankings

Explore best value colleges across all majors and categories.

Payback uses earnings by major from the College Scorecard's field-of-study file, last updated June 2026, against net price from the June 2026 release. Scorecard publishes the two separately, so they are different vintages.