Best Value / By Major

Best Value Colleges for Mathematics and Computer Science

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

4

Schools Ranked

$84,400

Avg. Earnings

<1 yr

Best Payback

337

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	$103,078	<1 yr
2	Harvey Mudd College Claremont, CA · Private	$18,077	$122,038	<1 yr
3	University of Akron Main Campus Akron, OH · Public	$18,860	$61,630	2.8 yrs
4	University of Illinois Chicago Chicago, IL · Public	$14,105	$50,856	3.6 yrs

Top Earners in Mathematics and Computer Science

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.