Graduating From This Illinois College Earns You Highest Salary

ILLINOIS — Just one Illinois colleges is featured on a new list that ranks 50 institutions in the United States that pay off the most for students.

Students that attend these universities earn the highest average salaries for how much they pay in tuition, according to the analysis conducted by CNBC. The publication’s list names 25 public and 25 private universities.

CNBC identified the net college costs for students that come from families that make between $48,001 and $75,000 using data from a non-profit education news organization. The net cost for each college was calculated after taking into account money students get from scholarships and grants.

CNBC then divided the net cost by the amount students are expected to earn once they graduate. (You can see CNBC’s full methodology here.)

The only Illinois college to make the list is the University of Chicago, where the median salary for new grads (zero to five years of experience) is $61,600. The median salary for grads with 10 or more years of experience is $117,500.

Stanford University topped CNBC’s list. According to CNBC, the net cost for a student from a family earning between $48,001 and $75,000 is just over $4,000 each year. The net cost for a Stanford student is so low because of the university’s generous scholarship awards, CNBC writes.

Stanford graduates have average salaries of $143,100 once they’ve been in the workforce for more than 10 years, CNBC’s report says.

Read the full CNBC report here.