Verified Federal Data · No Paid Rankings
Best Colleges in Georgia
Top Georgia colleges ranked by what actually matters after graduation: earnings, completion rates, and what you actually pay. Federal data. No surveys, no sponsorships.
How We Rank Georgia Colleges
Rankings use a composite score from verified federal data: 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. Only 4-year non-profit schools with sufficient data qualify.
- →Earnings: Median annual earnings 10 years after enrollment. 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 Colleges in Georgia (2026)
Ranked by composite: earnings, graduation rate, social mobility, debt, affordability.
| # | School | Earnings (10yr) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus Atlanta, GA | $102,772 |
| 2 |  Emory University Atlanta, GA | $80,137 |
| 3 |  University of Georgia Athens, GA | $68,726 |
| 4 |  Georgia State University Atlanta, GA | $47,384 |
| 5 | Andrew College Cuthbert, GA | $38,475 |
| 6 |  Kennesaw State University Kennesaw, GA | $57,552 |
| 7 | Agnes Scott College Decatur, GA | $56,274 |
| 8 |  Mercer University Macon, GA | $58,354 |
| 9 |  Georgia Southwestern State University Americus, GA | $48,757 |
| 10 |  Berry College Mount Berry, GA | $53,800 |
56 Georgia schools in dataset. Top 10 shown. Data: IPEDS + College Scorecard. Updated annually.
All 56 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.
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