North Central College named among top Illinois schools for return on investment

North Central College alumni earn a high return on investment (ROI) in their education, a new study shows.

North Central College is named a “High ROI College” by Affordable Colleges Online (AC Online), a key resource for college affordability and financial aid information. AC Online identified Illinois colleges and universities with the greatest lifetime return on investment and ranks North Central College No. 11 among 39 institutions in the state.

“Graduates from these schools enjoy the largest earnings gap between non-degree holders over 30 years and earn more on average than graduates from other Illinois schools,” AC Online says.

AC Online’s criteria for consideration as a “High ROI College” included being a fully accredited institution, either public or private. Qualifying schools had to be four-year, degree-granting institutions that showed a high ROI according to PayScale’s 2013 College Value Report.

For its methodology, AC Online used highly respected, authoritative data sets, including NCES, the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education; IPEDS, the primary federal source for data on colleges, universities and technical and vocational postsecondary schools in the nation; Carnegie Classification, a framework widely used in the study of higher education, both as a way to represent and control for institutional differences and also in the design of research studies to ensure adequate representation of sampled institutions, students or faculty; and Payscale.com, the premier salary data collection organization.

The rankings for Illinois colleges and universities may be viewed on AC Online’s website.

Affordable Colleges Online provides students with information about affordable higher education options. The website offers financial aid videos, expert advice and cost savings ideas. Visit affordablecollegesonline.org to learn more.

Founded in 1861, North Central College is an independent, comprehensive college of the liberal arts and sciences that offers more than 55 undergraduate majors and graduate programming in seven areas. Located in the Historic District of Naperville, Illinois—rated by Money magazine as among the nation’s “Best Places to Live”—North Central College is just 28 miles from Chicago’s Loop. With more than 3,000 undergraduate and graduate students, North Central College is committed to academic excellence, a climate that emphasizes leadership, ethics, values and service, a curriculum that balances job-related knowledge with a liberal arts foundation and a caring environment with small classes. Visit northcentralcollege.edu to learn more.