Even low-ranked colleges can be a ticket to six figures: Graduates earn $100K+ a decade later—more than twice as much as high school grads

Two joyful female graduates celebrating with their graduation regalia (Credit: Abraham Gonzalez Fernandez—Getty Images)

As the new school year gets well underway, Gen Z is once again facing a daunting question: Is the degree they’re pursuing actually going to be worth it? A new ranking of America’s top 500 colleges is offering a helpful insight: they don’t necessarily need an elite name on their diploma to land a six-figure salary.

The list, compiled by Forbes, is unsurprisingly dominated at the top by Ivy League-level institutions like MIT, Princeton and Harvard, where graduates are expected to earn median salaries of more than $120,000 a decade after receiving their diploma. Graduates of the University of Pennsylvania, ranked No. 5, come out even higher, with median 10-year earnings of $151,328.