Money Moves

Colleges with the best bang for your buck

3.  Harvey Mudd College

best bang for buck colleges 03 Harvey Mudd College
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  • 20-year return on investment: $1,060,000
  • Total 4-year cost: $249,000

Harvey Mudd College is a small, private liberal arts school outside Los Angeles that offers just nine majors -- all in the science, technology, engineering or math departments.

It has a great reputation. Google (GOOGL) alone hired 11 of its 170 graduates last year. The median starting salary for the class of 2015 was $92,500 -- double what a typical 20-something with a bachelor's degree can expect to earn.

Related: Why America's most expensive school is a bargain

But it's not cheap. Harvey Mudd charges $67,155 for tuition, room and board.

First published April 7, 2016: 7:15 AM ET
Source: PayScale
Based on survey data, PayScale 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 years. It took the difference in pay and subtracted the cost of attending school to determine the return on investment in 2015 dollars. The cost of attendance included tuition, room and board, and books -- and adjusted to account for the average grant awarded to students. Alumni who went on to graduate school were excluded from the data.

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