The 50 colleges that score highest for Economics on public federal data: selectivity, graduate earnings, program size, academic strength and graduate depth. It is a starting point for your research, not a judgment of quality.
50 colleges · each name links to its page, with sources · data snapshot October 2, 2026 · Updated October 2, 2026
How we rank programs · showing the top 50 of 50 core colleges ranked, those with enough graduates and earnings data · All top-programs lists
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| Rank | College | State | What we measured | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Harvard University | MA | Median earnings $155,592 · 260 graduates last year · 12% of the school's degrees | |
| 2 | University of Chicago | IL | Median earnings $159,578 · 678 graduates last year · 25% of the school's degrees | |
| 3 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | MA | Median earnings $143,372 (college-wide) · 14 graduates last year · 1% of the school's degrees | |
| 4 | Columbia University in the City of New York | NY | Median earnings $137,710 · 312 graduates last year · 11% of the school's degrees | |
| 5 | Princeton University | NJ | Median earnings $160,763 · 124 graduates last year · 9% of the school's degrees | |
| 6 | Duke University | NC | Median earnings $161,149 · 196 graduates last year · 8% of the school's degrees | |
| 7 | Yale University | CT | Median earnings $142,936 · 212 graduates last year · 11% of the school's degrees | |
| 8 | Johns Hopkins University | MD | Median earnings $128,882 · 77 graduates last year · 4% of the school's degrees | |
| 9 | University of Pennsylvania | PA | Median earnings $129,985 · 206 graduates last year · 6% of the school's degrees | |
| 10 | University of California-Berkeley | CA | Median earnings $135,050 · 677 graduates last year · 7% of the school's degrees | |
| 11 | Vanderbilt University | TN | Median earnings $140,337 · 285 graduates last year · 11% of the school's degrees | |
| 12 | Cornell University | NY | Median earnings $137,935 · 167 graduates last year · 4% of the school's degrees | |
| 13 | Stanford University | CA | Median earnings $112,700 · 117 graduates last year · 6% of the school's degrees | |
| 14 | New York University | NY | Median earnings $116,510 · 619 graduates last year · 7% of the school's degrees | |
| 15 | Rice University | TX | Median earnings $129,575 · 72 graduates last year · 6% of the school's degrees | |
| 16 | Brown University | RI | Median earnings $124,508 · 230 graduates last year · 9% of the school's degrees | |
| 17 | Northwestern University | IL | Median earnings $126,006 · 304 graduates last year · 11% of the school's degrees | |
| 18 | Williams College | MA | Median earnings $166,678 · 100 graduates last year · 14% of the school's degrees | |
| 19 | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor | MI | Median earnings $110,552 · 731 graduates last year · 8% of the school's degrees | |
| 20 | Washington University in St Louis | MO | Median earnings $125,348 · 157 graduates last year · 6% of the school's degrees | |
| 21 | Dartmouth College | NH | Median earnings $152,929 · 196 graduates last year · 13% of the school's degrees | |
| 22 | University of California-Los Angeles | CA | Median earnings $95,479 · 864 graduates last year · 9% of the school's degrees | |
| 23 | Boston College | MA | Median earnings $121,337 · 364 graduates last year · 11% of the school's degrees | |
| 24 | University of Notre Dame | IN | Median earnings $122,637 · 266 graduates last year · 9% of the school's degrees | |
| 25 | Carnegie Mellon University | PA | Median earnings $144,886 · 48 graduates last year · 2% of the school's degrees | |
| 26 | University of Virginia-Main Campus | VA | Median earnings $110,773 · 379 graduates last year · 7% of the school's degrees | |
| 27 | Tufts University | MA | Median earnings $123,809 · 189 graduates last year · 9% of the school's degrees | |
| 28 | Amherst College | MA | Median earnings $141,730 · 88 graduates last year · 12% of the school's degrees | |
| 29 | Swarthmore College | PA | Median earnings $128,051 · 78 graduates last year · 13% of the school's degrees | |
| 30 | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | NC | Median earnings $103,846 · 470 graduates last year · 7% of the school's degrees | |
| 31 | Claremont McKenna College | CA | Median earnings $146,524 · 120 graduates last year · 26% of the school's degrees | |
| 32 | Emory University | GA | Median earnings $111,631 · 134 graduates last year · 5% of the school's degrees | |
| 33 | University of California-Santa Barbara | CA | Median earnings $98,178 · 704 graduates last year · 10% of the school's degrees | |
| 34 | Bowdoin College | ME | Median earnings $121,983 · 75 graduates last year · 11% of the school's degrees | |
| 35 | Boston University | MA | Median earnings $96,723 · 264 graduates last year · 6% of the school's degrees | |
| 36 | Georgetown University | DC | Median earnings $118,999 · 173 graduates last year · 8% of the school's degrees | |
| 37 | Northeastern University | MA | Median earnings $101,423 · 197 graduates last year · 4% of the school's degrees | |
| 38 | Middlebury College | VT | Median earnings $123,477 · 124 graduates last year · 14% of the school's degrees | |
| 39 | Hamilton College | NY | Median earnings $130,633 · 99 graduates last year · 16% of the school's degrees | |
| 40 | Barnard College | NY | Median earnings $111,909 · 102 graduates last year · 10% of the school's degrees | |
| 41 | Colgate University | NY | Median earnings $128,887 · 113 graduates last year · 13% of the school's degrees | |
| 42 | University of Southern California | CA | Median earnings $94,435 · 197 graduates last year · 3% of the school's degrees | |
| 43 | Wellesley College | MA | Median earnings $121,787 · 79 graduates last year · 10% of the school's degrees | |
| 44 | The University of Texas at Austin | TX | Median earnings $89,354 · 383 graduates last year · 4% of the school's degrees | |
| 45 | Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus | GA | Median earnings $104,669 (field-wide) · 46 graduates last year · 1% of the school's degrees | |
| 46 | Haverford College | PA | Median earnings $112,050 · 33 graduates last year · 9% of the school's degrees | |
| 47 | Pomona College | CA | Median earnings $96,702 · 51 graduates last year · 10% of the school's degrees | |
| 48 | University of Florida | FL | Median earnings $89,075 · 318 graduates last year · 3% of the school's degrees | |
| 49 | Colby College | ME | Median earnings $103,491 · 107 graduates last year · 15% of the school's degrees | |
| 50 | University of Wisconsin-Madison | WI | Median earnings $85,366 · 590 graduates last year · 6% of the school's degrees |
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