Abstract
<p>Public discussion of college value often treats institutions as the relevant unit of comparison despite graduates' earnings differing substantially by field of study and credential level. This study uses the June 10, 2026 release of the U.S. Department of Education's College Scorecard Field of Study data to compare early-career earnings across three deliberately contrasting institutional groups: eight Ivy League universities, 10 urban/regional public universities, and three large nonprofit or public universities whose institutional models substantially emphasize working adults, nontraditional students, and online education. The analysis is restricted to bachelor's and master's programs in business, computing, education, and health. Institutions are compared only when they report earnings for the same detailed field and degree level. Separate analyses use one-year and two-year earnings measures because they describe different student cohorts. The one-year analysis includes 20 detailed program-and-degree combinations represented in all three groups; the two-year analysis includes 22. Within each combination and institutional group, reported program medians are averaged using earnings-cohort counts as weights. Group differences are then calculated and summarized with the median across matched detailed programs. Adult-serving and urban/regional public earnings are revealed to be substantially closer to one another than either comparison group is to the Ivy group. In the one-year analysis, the typical absolute public-adult difference is approximately $6,800, compared with $31,500 between Ivy and adult-serving institutions; the public-adult difference is smaller in six of seven field-and-degree comparisons. The two-year analysis reproduces the broad pattern: the corresponding typical absolute differences are approximately $8,400 and $29,100, and the public-adult difference is smaller in all seven comparisons. Ivy earnings exceed both public and adult-serving earnings in every available category at both measurement points, although magnitudes vary sharply by field and degree. These findings are descriptive and should not be interpreted as causal effects of institutional attendance or as earnings growth for the same graduates.</p>