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CollegeDebt

Our Methodology

CollegeDebt analyzes the return on investment for every school and major combination in America. We use federal education data to give students and families an honest answer to the question: is this degree worth the debt?

Data Sources

Our primary data source is the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard, a federal dataset that links student loan debt to post-graduation earnings at the school-and-major level. The College Scorecard is the most comprehensive public dataset connecting educational investment to financial outcomes.

Key data points include: median debt at graduation by program, median earnings 1 year and 4 years after graduation, completion rates, and net price by income bracket.

How We Calculate the ROI Score

Every school-major combination receives an ROI Score on a 0-100 scale (A-F) with a verdict: STRONG BUY, BUY, CAUTION, or AVOID. The score measures whether post-graduation earnings justify the debt taken on:

  • Debt-to-Earnings Ratio — The core metric. Median debt at graduation divided by median earnings in the first year. A ratio below 0.5 indicates strong ROI; above 1.5 signals that debt significantly exceeds early earnings.
  • Earnings Trajectory — The growth rate between Year 1 and Year 4 median earnings. High-growth fields like engineering and nursing show strong salary acceleration.
  • Completion Rate — Students who take on debt but don't graduate face the worst outcomes. Programs with low completion rates are penalized.
  • Net Price Context — The actual out-of-pocket cost after grants and scholarships, which varies significantly by family income bracket.

Verdicts: STRONG BUY (A, 80-100) means debt is clearly justified by earnings; AVOID (F, 0-34) means graduates typically struggle to service their debt.

Data Collection Process

We download the full College Scorecard dataset from the Department of Education, filter to institutions and programs with sufficient data (minimum sample sizes for reliable median calculations), and compute our composite ROI Score. All calculations are performed programmatically with no manual adjustments.

Update Frequency

The Department of Education updates the College Scorecard annually, typically in the fall. We refresh our dataset within two weeks of each update. Earnings data has a natural lag — Year 4 earnings reflect graduates from four years prior.

Known Limitations

  • College Scorecard earnings data only tracks students who received federal financial aid, which excludes some high-income students who may have different outcomes.
  • Earnings are measured 1 and 4 years post-graduation. Some fields (medicine, law, academia) have much longer payoff horizons that our scoring may undervalue.
  • The data does not distinguish between full-time and part-time earners, which can deflate median earnings for fields where part-time work is common.
  • Small programs may have suppressed data due to privacy thresholds, creating gaps in coverage.
  • The ROI Score is our own composite metric, not a Department of Education designation.

How to Cite This Data

If you use data from CollegeDebt, please cite:

CollegeDebt. "[School Name] [Major] ROI Data." collegeroidata.com, 2026. Accessed [date].

Underlying data is sourced from the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard and is in the public domain.