Ranked, compared, and filtered by real data: costs, outcomes, and admissions
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is one of the great public research universities in the country, known in part for the Wisconsin Idea, the principle nearly a century old that the university's service extends to every corner of the state, not just to its own campus.
Marquette brings a Jesuit research tradition and strong law and health sciences programs to Milwaukee, and Lawrence University in Appleton represents Wisconsin's investment in serious liberal arts education at the small-college level.
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See how Wisconsin'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 Wisconsin 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 Wisconsin'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 Wisconsin by the ratio of 10-year graduate earnings to annual net price.
| # | College | Net Price / yr | Earnings (10yr) | Ratio | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lakeshore Technical College Cleveland | $9,653 | $47,113 | 4.9× | Excellent |
| 2 | Northwood Technical College Rice Lake | $8,989 | $43,406 | 4.8× | Excellent |
| 3 | Moraine Park Technical College Fond du Lac | $9,268 | $44,371 | 4.8× | Excellent |
| 4 | Nicolet Area Technical College Rhinelander | $8,255 | $38,643 | 4.7× | Excellent |
| 5 | Milwaukee Area Technical College Milwaukee | $9,112 | $41,113 | 4.5× | Excellent |
| 6 | Northeast Wisconsin Technical College Green Bay | $9,918 | $44,553 | 4.5× | Excellent |
| 7 | Blackhawk Technical College Janesville | $9,330 | $41,620 | 4.5× | Excellent |
| 8 | Northcentral Technical College Wausau | $10,303 | $44,925 | 4.4× | 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 Wisconsin, based on IPEDS completion data.
The specific degree programs producing the most graduates across Wisconsin'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 Wisconsin. 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 Wisconsin 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.
