Best Value / By Major

Best Value Colleges for Engineering Mechanics

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

3

Schools Ranked

$70,513

Avg. Earnings

1.2 yrs

Best Payback

112

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 Illinois Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL · Public	$11,505	$74,307	1.2 yrs
2	University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI · Public	$10,364	$65,657	1.4 yrs
3	Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, VA · Public	$18,372	$71,575	2 yrs

Top Earners in Engineering Mechanics

See schools ranked by earnings alone, without considering cost.

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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.