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

1 Thomas Edison State University · Trenton · public +$3.93M
2 Stevens Institute of Technology · Hoboken · private +$3.15M
3 New Jersey Institute of Technology · Newark · public +$3.12M
4 Princeton University · Princeton · private +$2.70M
5 The College of New Jersey · Ewing · public +$1.73M
6 Felician University · Lodi · private +$1.72M
7 Rutgers University-New Brunswick · New Brunswick · public +$1.46M
8 Ramapo College of New Jersey · Mahwah · public +$1.01M
9 Saint Elizabeth University · Morristown · private +$916K
10 New Jersey City University · Jersey City · public +$779K
11 Rowan University · Glassboro · public +$651K
12 William Paterson University of New Jersey · Wayne · public +$531K
13 Kean University · Union · public +$465K
14 Seton Hall University · South Orange · private +$332K
15 Rider University · Lawrenceville · private +$69K

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

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