Rankings / By State
Best Education Colleges in Michigan
Find Your Program
Explore Accredited Programs in This Field
Find accredited programs in this field accepting applicants.
✓ Accredited programs ✓ 100% free ✓ No obligation
This ranking scores 26 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.
Quick Numbers
How We Ranked
Education programs in Michigan ranked by outcomes and program concentration
Read our full methodology →Earnings vs. Cost
Each dot is a ranked school. Up = higher earnings. Right = higher cost. Top-left is the best value.
Graduation Rates
Longer bars = higher graduation rate.
Top 3
Calvin University
Grand Rapids, MI
View full profile →
Central Michigan University
Mount Pleasant, MI
View full profile →
Hope College
Holland, MI
View full profile →
Sponsored
Featured Programs From Accredited Schools
Accredited schools accepting applicants in this field.
Full Rankings
Calvin University
Grand Rapids, MI · 3,193 students · Private nonprofit
Central Michigan University
Mount Pleasant, MI · 10,035 students · Public
Hope College
Holland, MI · 3,288 students · Private nonprofit
Ferris State University
Big Rapids, MI · 8,106 students · Public
Oakland University
Rochester Hills, MI · 12,351 students · Public
Saginaw Valley State University
University Center, MI · 5,989 students · Public
Eastern Michigan University
Ypsilanti, MI · 10,055 students · Public
Cornerstone University
Grand Rapids, MI · 1,298 students · Private nonprofit
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo, MI · 12,568 students · Public
Aquinas College
Grand Rapids, MI · 1,083 students · Private nonprofit
Lake Superior State University
Sault Ste Marie, MI · 1,325 students · Public
Grand Valley State University
Allendale, MI · 18,854 students · Public
Spring Arbor University
Spring Arbor, MI · 1,010 students · Private nonprofit
Albion College
Albion, MI · 1,300 students · Private nonprofit
Madonna University
Livonia, MI · 1,632 students · Private nonprofit
Muskegon Community College
Muskegon, MI · 2,760 students · Public
Northern Michigan University
Marquette, MI · 6,556 students · Public
Alma College
Alma, MI · 1,148 students · Private nonprofit
Gogebic Community College
Ironwood, MI · 511 students · Public
Adrian College
Adrian, MI · 1,604 students · Private nonprofit
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI · 15,587 students · Public
Southwestern Michigan College
Dowagiac, MI · 1,431 students · Public
Rochester University
Rochester Hills, MI · 792 students · Private nonprofit
University of Michigan-Dearborn
Dearborn, MI · 5,952 students · Public
University of Michigan-Flint
Flint, MI · 4,411 students · Public
Concordia University Ann Arbor
Ann Arbor, MI · 702 students · Private nonprofit
Sources & Citations
David Krug
Co-Founder, CollegeRanker
David Krug is the co-founder of CollegeRanker and a data systems architect focused on making institutional research accessible to families. He builds the data pipelines and ranking algorithms that power CollegeRanker, drawing from federal datasets and Raj Chetty's Opportunity Insights research to measure what traditional rankings ignore: whether a college actually changes a family's economic trajectory.
Related Rankings