As the new school year gets well underway, Gen Z is once again facing a daunting question: Is the degree they’re pursuing actually going to be worth it? A new ranking of America’s top 500 colleges is offering a helpful insight: they don’t necessarily need an elite name on their diploma to land a six-figure salary.

The list, compiled by *Forbes*, is unsurprisingly dominated at the top by Ivy League-level institutions like MIT, Princeton and Harvard, where graduates are expected to earn median salaries of more than $120,000 a decade after receiving their diploma. Graduates of the University of Pennsylvania, ranked No. 5, come out even higher, with median 10-year earnings of $151,328.  
  
But the more surprising finding comes at the other end of the list: Most of the lowest-ranked schools put six-figure salaries well within reach.  
  
In fact, nearly every school on the list has median earnings of over $90,000, meaning the earnings gap between a prestigious college and those lesser-known can be considerably narrower than students might expect.  
  
Read more \[paywall removed for Redditors\]: [https://fortune.com/2026/09/11/higher-education-low-ranked-schools-lead-to-six-figures-not-just-ivy-league-new-college-ranking-gen-z-100k/?utm\_source=reddit/](https://fortune.com/2026/09/11/higher-education-low-ranked-schools-lead-to-six-figures-not-just-ivy-league-new-college-ranking-gen-z-100k/?utm_source=reddit/)

Even low-ranked colleges can be a ticket to six figures: Graduates earn $100K+ a decade later—more than twice as much as high school grads