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Contents: Elite U.S. Universities | Earnings | World Universities | Best U.S. Science Universities | Top 10 World High Schools | Nobel prizes | A couple of Universities I and family members have attended

Elite U.S. Universities

Education and Earnings

Source: "The Big Payoff: Educational Attainment and Synthetic Estimates of Work-Life Earnings" (Census Bureau 2002)

At "Do Elite Colleges Lead to Higher Salaries? Only for Some Professions" - WSJ Feb. 1, 2016 they say,
Diplomas from prestigious schools boost future earnings only in certain fields, while in other fields they simply don't make a difference.

Specifically, for business and other liberal-arts majors, the prestige of the school has a major impact on future earnings expectations. But for fields like science, technology, education and math, it largely doesn't matter whether students go to a prestigious, expensive school or a low-priced one—expected earnings turn out the same. So, families may be wasting money by chasing an expensive diploma in those fields.

For STEM-related (Science, Technology, Education and Math) majors, average earnings don't vary much among the college categories.

The starkest earnings differences are for business majors, where graduates from the selective institutions earn 12% more on average than midtier graduates and 18% more than graduates from less-selective colleges. Likewise, social-science majors from selective colleges earn 11% more than their midtier counterparts and 14% more than those from less-selective schools. For education majors, the differences are 6% and 9%, respectively. In humanities, graduates of selective schools earn 11% more than those from less-selective ones, although they don't earn more than those from midtier schools.
There are many possible explanations for the disparities. In business, more prestigious schools may offer better alumni networks and other connections with potential employers. In other fields of study, more prestigious schools may offer better peer connections, faculty, university resources and, at least in social science and the humanities, access to better graduate programs. "

Source: Best Universities and Colleges | Payscale.com

1. Harvard University
2. Princeton University
3. Yale University
4. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
4. Stanford University
6. California Institute of Technology
6. University of Pennsylvania (tie)
8. Duke University
8. Columbia University
8. University of Chicago (tie)

1. MIT
2. UCLA
3. UC Berkeley
4. Cornell
5. Stanford
6. Penn State
7. Texas A&M
8. UC San Diego
9. U. Pennsylvania
10. U. Michigan

11. Johns Hopkins
12. U. WIsconsin, Madison
13. U. Illinois, UC
14. U. Wasington
15. Yale
16. Harvard
17. UC Davis
18. Northwestern
19. USC
20. U. Chicago

See also:
Best US Colleges at the U.S. News & World Report
WeboMetric ranking of world universities
50% of the score was based on a Web Impact Factor, that combines the number of external inlinks and the number of pages of the website. They also measured research output and prestige.

Rankings change slightly over time. For example 10 years ago, 1997, MIT, Harvard, Cal and Stanford were tied for #1 in Biology and Cal was #1 in Chemistry with the other three tied for #2; In 2007 Stanford was #1 in Biology and they were all tied for #1 in chemistry.

Others (departments in top 11/15):
Univ. Wisconsin-3/7, Univ. Texas-4/6

Other:
Medical School (Research): 1. Harvard, 2. Johns Hopkins, 3. U. Penn, 4. Washington U. (St. Louis), 5. UC-SF, 6. U. Washington, 7. Stanford, 8. Duke, 8. Yale, 10. Baylor, Columbia, U. Michigan

Neuroscience/NeuroBiology: 1. Harvard, 2. Stanford, 3. Johns Hopkins, 4. MIT, 5. UC-SD, 6. UC-SF, 7. Yale, Rockefeller U., 9. Washington U. (St. Louis), 10. Columbia, Cal. Tech

1  	Cambridge University 
2 	Oxford University 
3 	Harvard University 
4 	University of California, Berkeley
5 	Massachussets Institute of Technology (MIT)
6 	Stanford University
7 	Tokyo University
8 	Princeton University 
9 	California Institute of Technology
10 	Imperial College London 
 

NOBEL PRIZE SURVEY 2008 - institutions & universities

1. American Embassy School (Delhi)
2. Eton College (UK)
3. Dulwich College Shanghai (China)
4. Geelong Grammar School (Australia)
5. The Hotchkiss School (USA)
6. International School of Geneva (Switzerland)
7. Phillips Exeter Academy (USA)
8. Tanglin Trust School (Singapore)
9. United World College of South East Asia (Singapore)
10. Westminster School (UK)

Cate  Carpinteria, CA
Thacher  Ojai, CA
Think global school  San Francisco, CA
Oak Grove school Ojai, CA
Stevenson school Pebble Beach, CA 
Webb  Claremont, CA

The U.S. scores in math and science for 13 and 14 
year-old students has been in the middle, behind Poland and Hungary, compared to other countries since the mid 60's.

See International Testing in Math & Science.

Links:
World education rankings: reading, math and science? | guardian.co.uk
See Rankings at U.S. News & World Report
  Best Colleges
  Best Grad Schools
Academic Ranking of World Universities | Shanghai Ranking
WeboMetric ranking of world universities
Academic Ranking of World Universities (www.arwu.org) - 2007
Times World University Rankings at SocialCapitalGateway.org
Education levels by state
Educational Attainment: 2000 at census.gov
Donations/Giving