Federal Data · No Paid Rankings
Best Colleges for Biology & Pre-Med
Top biology and pre-med programs ranked by what their biology graduates earn, plus completion rates, debt and actual cost. Federal data. No paid rankings.
How We Rank Biology & Pre-Med Schools
These rankings use what biology bachelor's graduates earn, not the school-wide average. College Scorecard publishes earnings three years after graduation for each field of study. A school is ranked when it has a published figure for biology and at least 25 graduates behind it. Each school is then scored on our 5-component composite using federal data: biology graduate earnings (28%), graduation rate (25%), social mobility via Pell Grant share (20%), debt burden (15%), and net cost for low-income students (12%). Where a school has not reported one of these, that component is dropped and the remaining weights are rescaled rather than filled in with an estimate. A school with no net price on file for families earning up to $30,000 is scored on its overall average net price instead. Only 4-year non-profit schools with sufficient data qualify.
- →Earnings: Median annual earnings of biology bachelor's graduates three years after they graduate. Source: College Scorecard.
- →Graduation rate: Full-time first-time students completing within 150% of normal time. Source: IPEDS.
- →Net price: Average annual cost after all grants and scholarships. Source: IPEDS.
- →Social mobility: Share of students receiving Pell Grants, a direct measure of access for low-income students. Source: IPEDS.
- →Debt burden: Median federal loan debt at graduation. Source: College Scorecard.
Top 10 Biology & Pre-Med Schools (2026)
Ranked by composite: biology graduate earnings, graduation rate, social mobility, debt, affordability.
| # | School | Earnings (3yr)biology grads |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA | $56,051 |
| 2 | CUNY City College New York, NY | $45,850 |
| 3 | University of California-Berkeley Berkeley, CA | $45,694 |
| 4 | University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA | $46,976 |
| 5 | Berea College Berea, KY | $24,324 |
| 6 | University of California-Merced Merced, CA | $43,274 |
| 7 | Georgetown University Washington, DC | $53,607 |
| 8 | Northwestern University Evanston, IL | $46,191 |
| 9 | Northeastern University Boston, MA | $59,210 |
| 10 | San Jose State University San Jose, CA | $52,526 |
549 of 1,360 schools with Biology & Pre-Med programs have published biology graduate earnings and are ranked. Top 10 shown. Earnings are the median for biology bachelor's graduates three years after graduation, and Grads is how many graduates that figure covers. Data: IPEDS + College Scorecard. Updated annually.
All 1,360 Colleges in the Dataset
The ranking above shows the top 10 by composite score. Every school in the full dataset is listed here so you can explore beyond the top results.
A
57B
75C
137D
32E
37F
37G
34H
35I
28J
10K
20L
55M
101N
46O
35P
51R
36S
135T
70U
226V
15W
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