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

1 Sullivan University · Louisville · private +$2.12M
2 Spalding University · Louisville · private +$1.87M
3 Thomas More University · Crestview Hills · private +$1.79M
4 Northern Kentucky University · Highland Heights · public +$1.57M
5 University of Louisville · Louisville · public +$1.48M
6 University of Kentucky · Lexington · public +$1.27M
7 Murray State University · Murray · public +$1.11M
8 Eastern Kentucky University · Richmond · public +$942K
9 Western Kentucky University · Bowling Green · public +$845K
10 Morehead State University · Morehead · public +$811K
11 Midway University · Midway · private +$708K
12 Kentucky Christian University · Grayson · private +$607K
13 Kentucky State University · Frankfort · public +$579K
14 University of the Cumberlands · Williamsburg · private +$491K
15 Bellarmine University · Louisville · private +$402K

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

For each school we run the /worth-it calculator with the home state set to Kentucky — 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.