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

1 Bellevue University · Bellevue · private +$2.97M
2 Nebraska Methodist College of Nursing & Allied Health · Omaha · private +$2.91M
3 University of Nebraska Medical Center · Omaha · public +$2.83M
4 Union Adventist University · Lincoln · private +$2.49M
5 College of Saint Mary · Omaha · private +$2.31M
6 University of Nebraska at Omaha · Omaha · public +$1.66M
7 University of Nebraska-Lincoln · Lincoln · public +$1.65M
8 Peru State College · Peru · public +$1.35M
9 University of Nebraska at Kearney · Kearney · public +$1.29M
10 Creighton University · Omaha · private +$1.26M
11 Chadron State College · Chadron · public +$1.06M
12 Wayne State College · Wayne · public +$1.01M
13 Nebraska Wesleyan University · Lincoln · private +$802K
14 Hastings College · Hastings · private +$638K
15 Midland University · Fremont · private +$196K

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

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