Top Schools No Longer the Only Choice?! New Career Outcome Rankings of US Universities

About 3 weeks ago, the job-search tool site F1 Hire released the Career Outcome University Ranking, which focuses on international students’ employment outcomes and the cost of studying abroad, using data to measure the “return on investment” of US universities. The report draws on data from the US Department of Education, the Department of Labor and immigration authorities, with the goal of helping international students make better choices when planning to study abroad.

Ranking criteria and eligibility

F1 Hire’s materials lay out detailed scoring criteria and eligibility conditions:

• Scoring criteria: tuition, graduates’ average annual salary, permanent residency applicant (PERM) population, number of PERM applicants

• Eligibility: an institution must meet all 4 of the following to be scored

  • Location: a US four-year institution on record with NCES (National Center for Education Statistics).

  • Accreditation: holds regional accreditation and offers bachelor’s or higher degree programs.

  • International enrollment: at least 500 international students enrolled in 2023, according to SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor Information System) data.

  • Data availability: public tuition, post-graduation salary and performance (PERM) data available for analysis.

After screening, 275 universities made it into the ranking.

F1 Hire Career Outcome University Ranking 2024

Source: F1 Hire

Highlights

This ranking is built around employment outcomes. It focuses on the salary returns, job opportunities and career prospects that an education brings, breaking with traditional rankings centered on academic reputation and offering a career-focused standard instead. The key highlights:

California’s advantage

California has 8 of the top 25 universities: San Jose State University (#1), Stanford University (#2), California State University Sacramento (#6), University of Southern California (#8), San Diego State University (#14), University of California-Santa Cruz (#15), Santa Clara University (#17) and University of California-Berkeley (#25). Universities here benefit from California’s diverse job market, especially the booming Silicon Valley tech industry, which makes California a top destination for many international students focused on employment.

The Ivy League’s high-salary edge

7 of the 8 Ivy League schools made the top 25 thanks to their graduates’ high salaries: Princeton University (#4), Harvard University (#9), Cornell University (#16), University of Pennsylvania (#19), Dartmouth College (#20), Columbia University (#21) and Yale University (#23). This shows that top schools, through their academic reputation and resources, give graduates strong job competitiveness at higher salary levels.

Career potential beyond the big names

The top 25 also includes some lesser-known universities, such as Central Michigan University (#5), California State University Sacramento (#6), Northern Illinois University (#10), University of Houston-Clear Lake (#11), Louisiana Tech University (#22) and Maharishi International University (#25). These schools stand out in international students’ career development, showing that when you weigh job opportunities and return on investment, top-name schools are not the only choice.

Overall, the F1 Hire Career Outcome University Ranking offers an objective, employment-focused assessment that lets international students choose schools from a career perspective. It breaks the traditional impression of rankings driven by academic achievement and helps students build a school selection strategy that better fits their own goals.

References:

https://www.f1hire.com/ranking/news_release