ROI Movers: Which Colleges Gained and Lost Value
A degree that was a bargain a decade ago is not always a bargain today. We tracked one number for every school with enough history to measure it: the value ratio, or how many dollars a graduate earns for each dollar of annual net price. Between the 2009 and 2020 College Scorecard releases, Yeshiva of Nitra Rabbinical College’s value ratio climbed the most, while Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico-Ponce’s fell the hardest. Here is what moved, and why it might have.
What “Value Ratio” Means Here
The College Scorecard has published data on U.S. colleges for years, and we keep every release each school reported. That lets us do something a single snapshot can’t: watch how a school’s value has moved over time.
The measure we use is deliberately simple. The value ratio is a school’s median earnings ten years after entry divided by its average annual net price after aid. A ratio of 20 means graduates earn roughly $20 for every $1 of yearly net price. It captures the same earnings-against-cost tradeoff our ROI score is built on, but in a form we can compute at two points in a school’s own history and compare honestly.
We measured each school at the earliest and latest release years where it reported both earnings and net price, then ranked by the percent change in that ratio. For most schools those endpoints are the 2009 and 2020 releases, so the tables below hold 1474 schools measured over the exact same window. A rising ratio means value improved (earnings grew, or net price fell, or both); a falling ratio means the opposite.
Top 25 Risers: Value Improved Most
These schools’ value ratios grew the most between the 2009 and 2020 releases. In almost every case the story is a net price that dropped sharply after aid while earnings held steady or rose, which is exactly the direction a family wants to see. Public and lower-cost schools dominate the top of the list, because a small absolute change in an already-low net price moves the ratio a lot.
Top 25 Fallers: Value Declined Most
These schools moved the other way. Their earnings ten years out barely changed across the two releases, but their net price climbed, so each dollar of cost now buys less earning power than it did. A falling ratio is not proof a school is a bad choice today, but it is a reason to look closely at what you would actually pay now versus what graduates now earn.
Read These Numbers Carefully
This is a comparison of data vintages, not a live market signal. A few things are worth holding in mind before you read too much into any single row:
- Earnings publish with a long lag. Ten-year earnings are measured for students who entered college roughly a decade before the release date, and the Department of Education updates the series on an irregular schedule. Two releases can sit years apart, so a “move” reflects a real span of time, not a single year.
- Low-net-price schools swing hardest. When net price starts near a few thousand dollars, a modest dollar change is a big percentage change in the ratio. That is why deeply-subsidized public schools cluster at the top. The move is real, but the percentage overstates how dramatic the dollar change was.
- Reporting methods change. Net price and earnings definitions and cohorts have shifted across releases. Some of the movement is a school genuinely getting cheaper or its graduates earning more; some is the measuring stick itself changing.
- We never interpolate. We plot only years the government actually reported for each school. Gaps are real gaps, not smoothed over.
In our view the honest takeaway is directional, not precise: the risers show where the cost-versus-earnings math has improved over time, and the fallers show where it has eroded. For any school you care about, the profile page charts the full series so you can see the shape of the move yourself, rather than trusting two endpoints.
Methodology & Data
All figures come from the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard. For each school we take its stored history of average net price and median earnings ten years after entry, keyed by release year. The value ratio is earnings divided by net price. We evaluate it at the earliest and latest release years where a school reports both figures, and rank schools by the percent change in that ratio. The ranked tables are restricted to the 1474 schools whose endpoints are the 2009 and 2020 releases, so every school in a table is measured over the same window. No values are interpolated across missing years.
This report does not recompute our 0-100 ROI score at each historical vintage; that score is not stored historically, and the value ratio is a cleaner, more transparent proxy for the earnings-against-cost relationship it expresses. All dollar figures are nominal. Individual results vary by major, aid, and career path. These are estimates for comparison, not guarantees or financial advice.
See the full history for any school
Every school profile charts its net price, completion rate, and earnings across all reported College Scorecard releases, alongside its current ROI score and sub-scores.
Published July 3, 2026 by the CampusROI Editorial Team. Data from the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard (all reported release years). For press inquiries, data requests, or corrections: editor@campusroi.com.