How DegreeVerdict measures value.

Three payoff lenses

College payoff uses institution-wide results. Program payoff combines a college, four-digit field and credential. Degree payoff compares the same field and credential across colleges. Institution-wide price is identified as such; it is not presented as exact program tuition.

Reported figures and modeled scenarios

Earnings, federal debt and estimated standard payments come from the College Scorecard release dated June 10, 2026. Associate and bachelor’s ROI scenarios use reported earnings, college-wide price, expected study length and $45,000 in comparison earnings. The calculator lets you replace those assumptions with your own.

ROI formula

Economic investment is direct net price plus comparison earnings forgone while studying. Ten-year net payoff is ten years of annual earnings premium minus that investment. ROI divides net payoff by the investment; break-even divides the investment by the annual earnings premium. The same canonical calculation powers profiles, directories, comparisons, rankings and the homepage.

Credentials that need better price or baseline data

Certificate ROI requires exact program tuition because institution-wide annual net price can badly misstate a short program’s cost. Graduate ROI depends on what the student would earn with the credential they already hold. DegreeVerdict therefore withholds automated ROI in both cases and directs users to the calculator.

Ranking eligibility and guardrails

College economic-ROI rankings require current federal operating status, a reported bachelor’s-level program, at least 500 students and an annual average net price of at least $1,000. Major ROI rankings include associate and bachelor’s degrees with sufficient earnings observations. Automated percentages with an absolute value above 1,000% are withheld as too sensitive to a college-wide price proxy. Missing values are never replaced with zero.

Measure definitions

Average net price is the annual college-wide cost of attendance after grants and scholarships for full-time, first-time undergraduates receiving Title IV aid; public-college figures use in-state students. Completion is the share of first-time, full-time degree- or certificate-seeking undergraduates who finish within 150% of normal time.

Suppression and limits

Privacy-suppressed, empty and documented sentinel values are treated as unavailable. Federal field categories can combine catalog programs. Earnings describe past federally aided cohorts and cannot predict an individual result.