Best Value / By Major

Best Value Colleges for Area Studies

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

50

Schools Ranked

$31,124

Avg. Earnings

1.5 yrs

Best Payback

2,599

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	Harvard University Cambridge, MA · Private	$2,669	$41,937	1.5 yrs
2	Williams College Williamstown, MA · Private	$5,576	$44,384	2.4 yrs
3	Yale University New Haven, CT · Private	$2,815	$39,009	2.8 yrs
4	Georgetown University Washington, DC · Private	$12,505	$52,107	2.9 yrs
5	Dartmouth College Hanover, NH · Private	$12,172	$48,432	3.6 yrs
6	Columbia University in the City of New York New York, NY · Private	$8,106	$43,798	3.7 yrs
7	Cornell University Ithaca, NY · Private	$9,785	$44,170	4.3 yrs
8	Middlebury College Middlebury, VT · Private	$13,580	$44,091	6 yrs
9	George Washington University Washington, DC · Private	$21,174	$47,846	6.6 yrs
10	University of Virginia-Main Campus Charlottesville, VA · Public	$16,019	$44,356	6.8 yrs
11	Bowdoin College Brunswick, ME · Private	$14,896	$42,123	8.4 yrs
12	University of California-Berkeley Berkeley, CA · Public	$13,423	$40,821	9.2 yrs
13	Emory University Atlanta, GA · Private	$16,646	$42,123	9.3 yrs
14	La Salle University Philadelphia, PA · Private	$20,975	$43,240	10.2 yrs
15	University of the Pacific Stockton, CA · Private	$25,543	$44,384	10.9 yrs
16	Vanderbilt University Nashville, TN · Private	$7,694	$37,208	13.9 yrs
17	Mary Baldwin University Staunton, VA · Private	$17,336	$39,648	14.9 yrs
18	Saint Mary's College of California Moraga, CA · Private	$28,773	$42,682	15 yrs
19	University of Massachusetts-Boston Boston, MA · Public	$17,689	$39,729	15 yrs
20	Occidental College Los Angeles, CA · Private	$18,209	$39,369	16.7 yrs
21	Barnard College New York, NY · Private	$19,810	$39,648	17 yrs
22	The University of Alabama Tuscaloosa, AL · Public	$21,649	$39,909	17.6 yrs
23	University of Maryland-College Park College Park, MD · Public	$17,360	$38,829	18.1 yrs
24	University of Richmond University of Richmond, VA · Private	$16,063	$37,928	21.9 yrs
25	Dickinson College Carlisle, PA · Private	$19,300	$38,289	23.5 yrs
26	Iowa State University Ames, IA · Public	$14,641	$36,848	31.7 yrs
27	University of San Francisco San Francisco, CA · Private	$36,818	$39,369	33.7 yrs
28	American University Washington, DC · Private	$27,374	$37,748	39.8 yrs
29	Fordham University Bronx, NY · Private	$31,221	$37,928	42.7 yrs
30	Brandeis University Waltham, MA · Private	$24,183	$37,208	43.8 yrs
31	Connecticut College New London, CT · Private	$16,044	$36,312	48.9 yrs
32	Towson University Towson, MD · Public	$17,667	$36,141	61.9 yrs
33	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL · Public	$11,505	$35,594	77.5 yrs
34	University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN · Private	$14,020	$35,416	134.8 yrs
35	Miami University-Oxford Oxford, OH · Public	$23,513	$31,133	N/A
36	University of Missouri-Columbia Columbia, MO · Public	$13,715	$34,298	N/A
37	William & Mary Williamsburg, VA · Public	$10,995	$29,685	N/A
38	Ramapo College of New Jersey Mahwah, NJ · Public	$22,026	$32,569	N/A
39	Brigham Young University Provo, UT · Private	$12,676	$30,554	N/A
40	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, NC · Public	$11,619	$30,650	N/A
41	Colby College Waterville, ME · Private	$5,536	$33,993	N/A
42	New York University New York, NY · Private	$31,355	$21,052	N/A
43	University of Michigan-Dearborn Dearborn, MI · Public	$12,398	$31,839	N/A
44	Brown University Providence, RI · Private	$10,219	$33,993	N/A
45	University of California-Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA · Public	$14,583	$30,409	N/A
46	Rutgers University-New Brunswick New Brunswick, NJ · Public	$20,927	$26,715	N/A
47	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI · Public	$10,481	$34,420	N/A
48	University of Puget Sound Tacoma, WA · Private	$30,077	$20,140	N/A
49	The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX · Public	$16,134	$30,228	N/A
50	University of Washington-Seattle Campus Seattle, WA · Public	$8,393	$33,325	N/A

Top Earners in Area Studies

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.