The Colleges With The Best Value

College is expensive, but if you choose carefully, it really pays off.

PayScale surveyed full-time U.S. employees with bachelors degrees to find out which colleges have the best returns on investment.

This year, Harvey Mudd College took the top spot, edging out Ivies such as Stanford, Harvard, and M.I.T.

And Colorado School of Mines made its first appearance on the list.

For the list, PayScale projected the average future income of each school's graduates. Then it compared the future income to the cost of the college's tuition.

Not surprisingly, technical schools and Ivies ranked pretty high. But small state school and small religious schools didn't fare so well.

This is part of our series on The Best Colleges In America.

Click here to see the schools >