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

1 North Dakota State University-Main Campus · Fargo · public +$2.62M
2 University of North Dakota · Grand Forks · public +$2.53M
3 University of Mary · Bismarck · private +$2.34M
4 Dickinson State University · Dickinson · public +$2.00M
5 Minot State University · Minot · public +$1.96M
6 University of Jamestown · Jamestown · private +$1.83M
7 Mayville State University · Mayville · public +$1.29M
8 Valley City State University · Valley City · public +$1.27M

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

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