Colleges with the best bang for your buck

20-year return on investment: $838,100
Avg. total cost: $226,100
Avg. annual scholarships and grants: $29,856

Babson offers one major: business -- and it seems to pay off.

During freshman year at this Wellesley, Mass., school, each student joins a group that gets $3,000 to start and operate a business. At the end of the year, the students must close the company and sell its assets. Any profits go to charity. They reflect on that experience over the next three years and learn how to improve it.

With experiences like this, Babson's alumni enter the world ready to apply entrepreneurial thinking wherever they end up, said Scott Moore, the dean of undergraduates.

Of the 2013 graduating class, 82% of those seeking employment found full-time employment within the first six months and 15% of students started their own business.

First published April 7, 2014: 7:15 AM ET

Source:
PayScale economists calculated the total median pay for a school's undergraduate alumnus over a 20-year career and compared it to that of a high school graduate who worked for 24 to 26 years. They then subtracted the college's average cost of attending -- including tuition, room and board, and books -- and took scholarships and grants into account. From that, they determined the school's return on investment (in 2013 dollars). Alumni who went onto graduate school or other higher education were excluded from the calculations.

6 of 6