Best Value / By Major

Best Value Colleges for City/Urban, Community and Regional Planning

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

Schools Ranked

$39,368

Avg. Earnings

3.2 yrs

Best Payback

602

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 Virginia-Main Campus Charlottesville, VA · Public	$16,019	$55,338	3.2 yrs
2	Cornell University Ithaca, NY · Private	$9,785	$42,682	5.1 yrs
3	California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo, CA · Public	$17,340	$48,432	5.2 yrs
4	California State Polytechnic University-Pomona Pomona, CA · Public	$15,958	$47,260	5.2 yrs
5	Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, FL · Public	$12,323	$44,170	5.4 yrs
6	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL · Public	$11,505	$43,240	5.6 yrs
7	University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA · Private	$22,826	$48,041	7 yrs
8	Iowa State University Ames, IA · Public	$14,641	$43,426	7 yrs
9	University of Washington-Seattle Campus Seattle, WA · Public	$8,393	$38,289	10.2 yrs
10	Texas A&M University-College Station College Station, TX · Public	$17,525	$37,568	27.3 yrs
11	University of Arizona Tucson, AZ · Public	$13,644	$36,848	29.5 yrs
12	Arizona State University Campus Immersion Tempe, AZ · Public	$15,561	$35,518	120.2 yrs
13	Westfield State University Westfield, MA · Public	$18,291	$35,594	123.2 yrs
14	Michigan State University East Lansing, MI · Public	$20,557	$25,194	N/A
15	Ohio State University-Main Campus Columbus, OH · Public	$13,273	$32,119	N/A
16	Texas State University San Marcos, TX · Public	$12,996	$32,925	N/A
17	Eastern Washington University Cheney, WA · Public	$12,224	$33,993	N/A
18	Indiana University of Pennsylvania-Main Campus Indiana, PA · Public	$22,726	$31,839	N/A

Top Earners in City/Urban, Community and Regional Planning

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.