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

1 South Dakota School of Mines and Technology · Rapid City · public +$4.58M
2 South Dakota State University · Brookings · public +$2.24M
3 Dakota State University · Madison · public +$2.08M
4 National American University-Rapid City · Rapid City · private +$1.77M
5 University of South Dakota · Vermillion · public +$1.66M
6 University of Sioux Falls · Sioux Falls · private +$1.49M
7 Dakota Wesleyan University · Mitchell · private +$1.46M
8 Northern State University · Aberdeen · public +$1.25M
9 Mount Marty University · Yankton · private +$1.24M
10 Black Hills State University · Spearfish · public +$855K
11 Augustana University · Sioux Falls · private +$735K

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 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.