Is Mount Holyoke Worth It? ROI Data on Mount Holyoke College (2026)

Mount Holyoke College charges $67,018 per year at sticker. The average net price after aid is $26,441 — the most accessible full-cost exposure of any school in this batch. Graduates earn $36,800 six years after enrollment and $58,418 at ten years. Median debt at graduation is $22,902. The payback period is 10.5 years.

Mount Holyoke is the only women's college in this analysis. That fact shapes everything worth saying about it. The 10.5-year payback period is the longest in this group, and the 60/100 composite score (Fair Value) is the lowest — but those numbers sit against a context that matters: 21.9% of students receive Pell Grants, the highest rate among the seven schools in this batch, indicating meaningful economic diversity in a sector that trends affluent. The school is making deliberate choices about who it admits.

The Mount Holyoke College CampusROI profile shows program-by-program earnings and debt grades.

The fair value designation is accurate as a financial description. It is not a full description of the school.

Mount Holyoke by the Numbers

The debt-to-earnings ratio of 0.622 is the most strained figure in this analysis. Monthly payments of roughly $243 against $36,800 in year-6 earnings consume about 7.9% of income — workable, but tight at the margin. The 10-year earnings of $58,418 improve that picture, but the absolute gap between debt burden and earnings is real.

The 84.4% completion rate is lower than the Williams–Middlebury–Vassar peer group, which typically runs 91–95%. About 15 out of every 100 students who enroll do not finish. That has direct financial consequences: non-completers carry debt without the credential.

Cost by Income Bracket

For low-income families, Mount Holyoke's under-$30,000 bracket ($10,882/year) and the $30,001–$48,000 bracket ($9,526/year) are among the more accessible in this batch. Vassar charges $15,953 for the lowest-income bracket; Carleton charges $7,881. Mount Holyoke sits in the middle but closer to the accessible end.

The 21.9% Pell Grant rate is worth naming directly. Pell Grants go to students from families with the lowest income and assets. A Pell rate of 21.9% at a $67,000-tuition private college means Mount Holyoke is actively recruiting and funding students who would otherwise have no realistic path to a school at this selectivity level. That is a genuine institutional commitment, whatever the ROI score says.

For high-income families above $110,000, the $38,561 average is the lowest in this batch — lower than Middlebury ($49,824), Vassar, and comparable schools. Full-pay students at Mount Holyoke are paying less than full-pay students at peer institutions. That does not fix the earnings gap, but it narrows the payback math for that segment.

What Graduates Earn

Mount Holyoke's program earnings data reveals a school with a narrow set of strong performers and a large share of programs where the 6-year data significantly understates long-run outcomes:

Computer science is Mount Holyoke's strongest program — 33 graduates per year, $71,672 at one year, $120,021 at four years. The B+ grade reflects that debt ($21,500) is higher relative to CS earnings at comparable schools, but the four-year trajectory to $120,021 is meaningful. Mount Holyoke's CS program draws from the Five College Consortium's shared resources and has a specific institutional identity around developing women in technology. Students who enter with that intention and the aptitude to follow through face solid financial outcomes.

Biology is the largest program at 58 graduates per year, with $39,270 at one year and $55,869 at four years. The C grade reflects the data-as-captured, not a statement about the long-run value of medicine or research careers. A significant share of Mount Holyoke biology graduates are in medical school, PhD programs, or post-baccalaureate research positions at the one-year measurement point. The school has historically been a meaningful pipeline for women into science careers. That long-run value does not appear in the 6-year earnings median.

Psychology (69 graduates per year, $32,439 at one year) carries a D grade and is the largest program with available earnings data. The debt-to-earnings ratio of 0.748 is the starkest in the dataset for programs with meaningful enrollment. Students using psychology as a path to clinical psychology (PsyD or PhD, typically 5–7 more years of education) or research will have materially different long-run outcomes than these figures suggest. Students entering psychology without a graduate school plan face the hardest financial case at Mount Holyoke.

Education (16 graduates, $57,051 at four years, B+ grade) is notable for being one of the stronger ROI signals in a dataset with many D and F grades. For students committed to teaching or educational policy, this is the most financially defensible path at Mount Holyoke.

The Single-Sex Environment

Mount Holyoke is a women's college. That is a deliberate institutional choice, and students who choose it are typically making an intentional decision rather than treating it as a fallback.

The practical implications are worth naming directly. The academic and residential experience at Mount Holyoke is structured around an all-women community. Research consistently documents higher rates of leadership participation, academic confidence, and graduate school completion among women's college graduates compared to their co-educational peers — effects that do not appear in the 6-year earnings data but show up in long-run career trajectories, particularly in law, medicine, policy, and finance.

The Seven Sisters alumni network — Wellesley, Smith, Barnard, Vassar (now co-ed), Radcliffe (now part of Harvard), Bryn Mawr, and Mount Holyoke — remains dense in finance, law, and policy decades after graduation. That network is not a brochure abstraction; it is a specific competitive advantage in fields where relationship access matters. The single-sex environment is a deliberate choice, not a gap in your network.

The Five College Consortium means the Mount Holyoke social and academic experience extends well beyond the South Hadley campus. Cross-registration at Amherst, UMass Amherst, Smith, and Hampshire is real and commonly used. Students access a significantly larger curriculum and social community than Mount Holyoke's 2,169-person enrollment implies.

Peer Comparison

Mount Holyoke's natural comparisons are women's colleges and nearby Massachusetts schools:

- Amherst College: ROI 90, net price $23,367, 6-year earnings $61,600, 10-year earnings $77,644 - Smith College (women's): ROI 73, net price $27,579, 6-year earnings $37,400 - Mount Holyoke: ROI 60, net price $26,441, 6-year earnings $36,800, 10-year earnings $58,418

Amherst is the clearest financial outperformer in the Massachusetts LAC group — lower net price, materially higher earnings, and a much shorter payback. For students admitted to both Amherst and Mount Holyoke, the financial case for Amherst is strong on the numbers alone. See our Amherst analysis for the full breakdown.

Smith and Mount Holyoke are near-equivalent on aggregate financial metrics. Smith's 6-year earnings ($37,400) are $600 higher than Mount Holyoke's ($36,800) at a net price that is $1,138 higher per year. For practical purposes, these two schools tie on financial outcomes, and the choice between them comes down to campus culture, program fit, and specific financial aid packages.

For an Ivy peer comparison, Dartmouth's ROI analysis shows what the earnings premium looks like at $93,280 at 10 years versus Mount Holyoke's $58,418 — the gap is real, but so is the admissions difference (Dartmouth at 6% acceptance vs. Mount Holyoke at 36%).

The Verdict

Mount Holyoke scores 60/100 — Fair Value. The financial case is the most conditional of any school in this analysis, and it is worth being direct about what that means.

Worth it for: - Students who specifically want the women's college experience and have clarity about what that means for their academic and social life. The choice is a genuine asset for students who make it with intention. - CS students who want to develop in a women-centered STEM environment. $71,672 at one year rising to $120,021 at four years is a real outcome, and the Five College Consortium resources augment the program. - Low-income families with Pell-eligible students. The net price in the lowest two income brackets ($9,526–$10,882/year) is competitive, and the 21.9% Pell rate signals that the school actively builds aid packages for these students. Compare with Smith's specific package. - Students with clear graduate school plans in medicine, law, or research. Biology, psychology, and pre-professional programs route heavily into graduate education; the 6-year earnings data understates the long-run value for these tracks. - Education majors. The B+ grade and $57,051 at four years is a reasonable financial outcome in a sector that rarely exceeds education-program debt ratios elsewhere.

Think harder if: - You're in humanities or arts without a graduate school plan. English (F grade, $22,680 at one year), anthropology (F grade, $19,655 at one year), and fine arts (F grade, $18,420 at one year) carry the weakest financial cases in the dataset. Debt at graduation against those earnings is a genuinely difficult starting position. - You're a high-income family trying to optimize ROI on $38,561/year. The 10.5-year payback applies at that net price too, and the earnings premium against a high-school baseline is 22.1% — the lowest earnings-premium sub-score in this batch. - You want direct-to-career pipelines in finance or technology. Mount Holyoke's employer recruiting relationships are smaller than comparable co-ed schools, and the Five College Consortium does not close that gap for competitive finance or tech recruiting. - The 84.4% completion rate concerns you relative to alternatives. At Williams, Middlebury, and Amherst, completion runs 91–95%. The 15% non-completion rate at Mount Holyoke is not trivial, and non-completers bear debt without the credential.

Mount Holyoke's value proposition is specific: a women's college with meaningful economic diversity, strong alumni networks in fields where women have historically been underrepresented, and a Five College Consortium that extends the experience well beyond campus. That is a real value proposition. It is not primarily a financial one, and the data does not pretend otherwise.

Data sources: College Scorecard, IPEDS, as of 2024.