Colleges with the highest-paid grads

Cooper Union's campus in Manhattan's East Village neighborhood.

Rank: 14 (tie)
Mid-career salary: $116,000
Starting salary: $61,400
% of grads who think their job is meaningful: 50%

Few colleges offer more bang for the buck than this select engineering and fine arts school in Manhattan's East Village, which has less than 1,000 students. The Cooper Union has always been tuition-free (although that's scheduled to change in the fall of 2014), yet that hasn't compromised the caliber of the education that students receive: many of its alumni go on to the well-paid jobs in technology and design.

First published October 23, 2013: 12:50 PM ET

Source: PayScale.com. Data used in the College Salary Report came from surveys completed by roughly 1.4 million college graduates of 1,016 colleges and universities, which represent 75% of all bachelor's degree recipients in the U.S. Graduates with advanced degrees were excluded from the results. Only full-time, civilian workers based in the 50 states and District of Columbia were counted. Mid-career results were based on median salaries of graduates with 10 years of work experience. Whether a job is meaningful is based on the percentage of graduates who answered "Very much so" and "Yes" to the question: "Does your work make the world a better place?"

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