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

1 Citadel Military College of South Carolina · Charleston · public +$2.38M
2 Clemson University · Clemson · public +$2.05M
3 University of South Carolina-Columbia · Columbia · public +$1.66M
4 University of South Carolina-Upstate · Spartanburg · public +$1.24M
5 University of South Carolina Aiken · Aiken · public +$1.21M
6 University of South Carolina Beaufort · Bluffton · public +$917K
7 Limestone University · Gaffney · private +$727K
8 Bob Jones University · Greenville · private +$652K
9 College of Charleston · Charleston · public +$597K
10 Lander University · Greenwood · public +$486K
11 Francis Marion University · Florence · public +$460K
12 Columbia College · Columbia · private +$420K
13 Coastal Carolina University · Conway · public +$295K
14 Charleston Southern University · Charleston · private +$248K
15 Southern Wesleyan University · Central · private +$195K

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

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