Best Colleges for Low-Income Students

This ranking scores 50 institutions on graduation rates, graduate earnings, debt burdens, and social mobility data from Opportunity Insights. Every data point comes from federal sources. No surveys, no opinions.

Social mobility carries the heaviest weight in our algorithm. We use Raj Chetty's Mobility Report Card — built on 30 million anonymized tax records — to measure whether a college changes a family's economic trajectory across generations. Schools that take low-income students and launch them into higher earnings rank higher than schools that admit wealthy students and take credit for their success.

The transparency penalty matters here. Schools that don't report their data get scored lower than schools that do. If an institution won't show you its numbers, we think you should know that before you write them a tuition check.