Ranked, compared, and filtered by real data: costs, outcomes, and admissions
The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor consistently places among the top public universities in the country, with particular strength in medicine, law, engineering, and business that makes it genuinely competitive with private alternatives that charge three times the in-state tuition.
Michigan State's agricultural, veterinary, and education programs carry the land-grant tradition in a different direction, and Wayne State serves as the urban research anchor for a Detroit metro area that is in the middle of a real economic reinvention.
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See how Michigan's colleges compare to the national average on the four measures most students and families weigh when deciding where to go: cost, acceptance rates, graduate earnings, and graduation rates.
The colleges in Michigan that rank highest by UCD Score, and those that deliver above-national graduate earnings at a below-average net price, two of the strongest signals when choosing a school.
Not every student is looking for the same thing. These six panels rank Michigan's colleges by the data that matters most for each path.
Ranked by annual graduates
Ranked by annual graduates
Ranked by annual graduates
Ranked by net price
Ranked by enrollment
Ranked by grad earnings
Which colleges give you the most for what you spend? These eight schools rank highest in Michigan by the ratio of 10-year graduate earnings to annual net price.
| # | College | Net Price / yr | Earnings (10yr) | Ratio | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Henry Ford College Dearborn | $660 | $34,795 | 52.7× | Excellent |
| 2 | Macomb Community College Warren | $1,618 | $41,596 | 25.7× | Excellent |
| 3 | West Shore Community College Scottville | $1,527 | $36,115 | 23.7× | Excellent |
| 4 | Schoolcraft Community College District Livonia | $2,260 | $42,722 | 18.9× | Excellent |
| 5 | Kalamazoo Valley Community College Kalamazoo | $2,979 | $38,618 | 13.0× | Excellent |
| 6 | Washtenaw Community College Ann Arbor | $3,249 | $39,449 | 12.1× | Excellent |
| 7 | Alpena Community College Alpena | $3,320 | $36,442 | 11.0× | Excellent |
| 8 | Bay Mills Community College Brimley | $3,073 | $30,048 | 9.8× | Excellent |
ROI Ratio = median earnings 10 years after enrollment ÷ annual net price. Higher is better.
The six fields of study with the most annual graduates across all colleges in Michigan, based on IPEDS completion data.
The specific degree programs producing the most graduates across Michigan's colleges. A more granular view than the Popular Majors above, useful when you already know roughly what you want to study and want to see where the volume is.
Careers with a strong employment footprint in Michigan. What graduates from local colleges actually go on to do. State-level employment is shown where the BLS publishes it; national wage + growth shown alongside.
The cities in Michigan with the most colleges, ranked by number of institutions.
Utah crowds 14,137 students into each of its colleges, four times the national norm. These are the states where college options are scarcest per student.
There are 170 colleges that operate a medical school, and they cluster hard. Texas leads with 14, three states hold a fifth of them, and four states have none.
Northeast college graduates earn about $12,700 more a decade out than Southern ones, but they also pay thousands more to get there. The regional split, by the numbers.
Browse our full directory: every college, major, program, and career we track, all built from verified government data.
Scout uses AI and can make mistakes. Verify important numbers on the page.
