Best Value / By Major

Best Value Colleges for Petroleum Engineering

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

Schools Ranked

$74,887

Avg. Earnings

<1 yr

Best Payback

1,794

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	The University of Texas Permian Basin Odessa, TX · Public	$10,549	$87,532	<1 yr
2	University of Wyoming Laramie, WY · Public	$9,394	$73,949	1 yrs
3	University of Alaska Fairbanks Fairbanks, AK · Public	$11,587	$75,889	1.1 yrs
4	The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX · Public	$16,134	$88,723	1.2 yrs
5	Texas A&M University-College Station College Station, TX · Public	$17,525	$92,124	1.2 yrs
6	Texas Tech University Lubbock, TX · Public	$15,248	$83,325	1.3 yrs
7	Missouri University of Science and Technology Rolla, MO · Public	$11,656	$72,214	1.3 yrs
8	Montana Technological University Butte, MT · Public	$16,499	$78,343	1.5 yrs
9	New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology Socorro, NM · Public	$15,379	$75,204	1.5 yrs
10	University of Oklahoma-Norman Campus Norman, OK · Public	$21,725	$91,017	1.6 yrs
11	University of North Dakota Grand Forks, ND · Public	$15,818	$72,762	1.7 yrs
12	University of Houston Houston, TX · Public	$13,382	$67,380	1.7 yrs
13	University of Tulsa Tulsa, OK · Private	$21,541	$80,022	1.9 yrs
14	Marietta College Marietta, OH · Private	$17,821	$71,575	1.9 yrs
15	West Virginia University Morgantown, WV · Public	$13,077	$61,303	2 yrs
16	University of Louisiana at Lafayette Lafayette, LA · Public	$14,322	$61,888	2.1 yrs
17	Colorado School of Mines Golden, CO · Public	$24,461	$77,213	2.3 yrs
18	Pennsylvania State University-Penn State Erie-Behrend College Erie, PA · Public	$21,255	$69,535	2.5 yrs
19	University of Kansas Lawrence, KS · Public	$18,586	$63,005	2.7 yrs
20	Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus University Park, PA · Public	$27,137	$69,535	3.1 yrs
21	Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Baton Rouge, LA · Public	$19,623	$60,099	3.1 yrs

Top Earners in Petroleum Engineering

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.