Ranked, compared, and filtered by real data: costs, outcomes, and admissions
Rutgers is one of the original colonial colleges, and its growth into a major public research university has given New Jersey a flagship with genuine national reach in pharmacy, engineering, public health, and business.
Princeton operates in an entirely different category, one of the best-funded and most selective universities in the world, and the fact that it sits twenty minutes from Rutgers by train says something about the range available to students in a state that is easy to underestimate.
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See how New Jersey'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 New Jersey 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 New Jersey'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 New Jersey by the ratio of 10-year graduate earnings to annual net price.
| # | College | Net Price / yr | Earnings (10yr) | Ratio | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Middlesex College Edison | $2,288 | $46,861 | 20.5× | Excellent |
| 2 | Princeton University Princeton | $6,128 | $110,066 | 18.0× | Excellent |
| 3 | Yeshiva Toras Chaim Lakewood | $5,356 | $62,526 | 11.7× | Excellent |
| 4 | Essex County College Newark | $4,436 | $37,230 | 8.4× | Excellent |
| 5 | Rowan College at Burlington County Mount Laurel | $5,344 | $44,745 | 8.4× | Excellent |
| 6 | Mercer County Community College West Windsor | $5,279 | $43,264 | 8.2× | Excellent |
| 7 | Warren County Community College Washington | $5,726 | $43,359 | 7.6× | Excellent |
| 8 | Raritan Valley Community College Branchburg | $6,778 | $48,145 | 7.1× | 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 New Jersey, based on IPEDS completion data.
The specific degree programs producing the most graduates across New Jersey'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 New Jersey. 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 New Jersey 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.
