Best Colleges in Georgia

How We Rank Georgia Colleges

Rankings use a composite score from 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. Two adjustments apply: the earnings component is reduced by 13% for schools where graduate students are more than 20% of enrollment and by 25% where they are more than 30%, and 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 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.