Find a Job You Really Want In
As the unemployment rate continues to shrink to figures not seen for nearly half a century, it’s becoming more and more important for college graduates to prepare for a competitive workforce.
This means picking the right major, having great internship and work experiences, but most of all, choosing the right college to attend in the first place.
If you missed our study last year about the best college in each state for finding a job, check it out.
Given that a new crop of recent grads just entered the workforce (welcome to the thunderdome, class of 2018), we figured we’d redo our analysis for the newest bunch, and see what schools set their students up best for success after graduation.
Below is a list of the top fifty, but first, here’s the best of the best:
- Pennsylvania – Lebanon Valley College
- Rhode Island – Salve Regina University
- Ohio – Ohio Northern University
- Oregon – Oregon Health amp; Science University
- New York – Hobart and William Smith Colleges
- South Dakota – University of Sioux Falls
- Wisconsin – University of Wisconsin – Platteville
- Massachusetts – Endicott College
- Nebraska – Nebraska Wesleyan University
- Connecticut – Quinnipiac University
Using the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) and Department of Education College Scorecard data, we searched for the college in each state with the highest listed job placement ratings, looking specifically at employment levels at year 10 after students start.
Then, we looked at the ratings themselves and ranked each state’s top school according to their rating. For the purposes of readability, the top schools’ ratings were then rounded down to the last three decimal places, and we included the city the top ten colleges are located in.
Ok, that’s it! Now, onto the list.
1. Pennsylvania
- College: Lebanon Valley College
- City: Annville
- Placement Rate: 96.185%
- LVC tops the rankings as the best college in the United States for finding a job. With 40+ majors and just a 10:1 student-to-faculty ratio, career guidance is a big deal at LVC, and it shows with their ranking.
2. Rhode Island
- College: Salve Regina University
- City: Newport
- Placement Rate: 95.896%
- Besides its campus emitting images of Hogwarts, Salve Regina University’s second best quality is getting its graduates jobs. The school keeps growing, as it just graduated its largest class ever.
3. Ohio
- College: Ohio Northern University
- City: Ada
- Placement Rate: 95.527%
- ONU consistently beats the placement rate national average for its graduates.
4. Oregon
- College: Oregon Health amp; Science University
- City: Portland
- Placement Rate: 95.509%
- It isn’t too often one can say their campus is a hospital, but such is the case with Oregon Health amp; Science University, with a main campus, including two hospitals, in Portland.
5. New York
- College: Hobart and William Smith Colleges
- City: Geneva
- Placement Rate: 95.447%
- Another college with a picturesque campus, Hobart and William Smith Colleges is one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country. Many of their students take advantage of their reputed study abroad programs, as well.
6. South Dakota
- College: University of Sioux Falls
- City: Sioux Falls
- Placement Rate: 95.428%
- The private liberal arts university only has about 1,500 students, but gets the vast majority of those students jobs after graduation.
7. Wisconsin
- College: University of Wisconsin – Platteville
- City: Platteville
- Placement Rate: 95.337%
- With an in-state tuition of just above $7,500, Wisconsin-Platteville offers one of the best bang-for-your buck educations for any in-state school.
8. Massachusetts
- College: Endicott College
- City: Beverly
- Placement Rate: 95.309%
- Alright, we’re serious this time. Endicott College may have the best looking campus in the country. Just do yourself a favor and google it. With 90% of employed graduates working in careers related to their major, the #views aren’t the only reason to attend Endicott.
9. Nebraska
- College: Nebraska Wesleyan University
- City: Lincoln
- Placement Rate: 95.217%
- NWU is a private, coeducational university in the state’s capital. Bringing some shine the college is the fact that it is among the nation’s leaders in Fulbright scholars.
10. Connecticut
- College: Quinnipiac University
- City: Hamden
- Placement Rate: 95.172%
- If you start at Quinnipiac, you aren’t likely to leave – the university boasts a retention rate of 90% from first to second-year students. The school is also among the best colleges for veterans.
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Author
McLeod Brown is a former writer and researcher for the Zippia Career Advice blog. His work at Zippia focused on understanding the relationship between colleges, debt, and jobs. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington with a BA in Business Administrator, he is now pursuing a masters of science in analytics from the Institute of Advanced Analytics.
