FREOPP 2021 earnings · IPEDS 2023 cost · BEA 2023 cost-of-living · California four-year schools, resident pricing · real-earnings-coverage only · every school shown is NPV-positive.

1 California Institute of Technology · Pasadena · private +$10.06M
2 California State University Maritime Academy · Vallejo · public +$6.42M
3 Harvey Mudd College · Claremont · private +$6.07M
4 Loma Linda University · Loma Linda · private +$4.62M
5 Pomona College · Claremont · private +$4.32M
6 Claremont McKenna College · Claremont · private +$4.16M
7 California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo · San Luis Obispo · public +$3.02M
8 Pacific Union College · Angwin · private +$2.71M
9 Stanford University · Stanford · private +$2.61M
10 National University · San Diego · private +$2.50M
11 University of California-Berkeley · Berkeley · public +$2.50M
12 Southern California Institute of Technology · Anaheim · private +$2.45M
13 Dominican University of California · San Rafael · private +$2.39M
14 San Jose State University · San Jose · public +$1.94M
15 California State University-East Bay · Hayward · public +$1.89M

How this is computed (and what it isn’t)

For each school we run the /worth-it calculator with the home state set to California — resident tuition, plus foregone wages, capitalized loan interest, and BEA cost-of-living on the skip-college path. The ranking is the 30-year projected net value of going vs. skipping and investing the difference. It ranks schools, not majors — and the major you pick swings that payoff by over a million dollars on its own.

What it isn’t: a list of “good schools.” It’s a list of good trades at resident pricing. Schools without real FREOPP earnings coverage are excluded rather than estimated; institutions whose earnings roll up from fewer than 3 reported programs are excluded as too thin to rank; schools verified closed since the IPEDS 2023-24 vintage are excluded by hand. Only NPV-positive schools are listed — the point is where the value is, not naming losers.