Money | college Colleges That Pay Off These schools offer a good return on investment By John Johnson Posted Jul 3, 2010 7:00 PM CDT Copied M.I.T. tops the list of colleges that offer the best return on investment. (Shutterstock) Which colleges pay off? PayScale crunched the numbers to compute the best returns on investment—by comparing the cost of a degree against what its students earn upon graduation—and Huffington Post rounds up the best of the bunch: Massachusetts Institute of Technology: annual ROI: 12.6%; 30-year ROI: $1.69 million California Institute of Technology: 12.6%; $1.64 million Harvard: 12.5%; $1.63 million Harvey Mudd College: 12.5%; $1.63 million Dartmouth: 12.4%; $1.59 million Stanford: 12.3%; $1.57 million Princeton: 12.3%; $1.52 million Yale: 11.9%; $1.39 million Notre Dame: 12.2%; $1.38 million University of Pennsylvania: 11.8%; $1.36 million See the Huffington Post slideshow here and PayScale's complete rankings here. Read These Next We knew Letterman would pipe up about Colbert eventually. 11 people hurt in a "brutal act of violence" in Michigan. Now we know why Ghislaine Maxwell may have opened up to the DOJ. A parent's nightmare, in a white cardboard box. Report an error