Best Value / By Major

Best Value Colleges for Physical Sciences

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

3

Schools Ranked

$49,464

Avg. Earnings

4.1 yrs

Best Payback

130

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 Maryland-College Park College Park, MD · Public	$17,360	$52,107	4.1 yrs
2	Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester, NY · Private	$31,935	$63,005	4.6 yrs
3	Villanova University Villanova, PA · Private	$28,580	$33,281	N/A

Top Earners in Physical Sciences

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.