There are at least 50 universities in the US that charge over $60,000 a year to attend — a serious investment for any degree. And yet, some families begin investing in their children's education even earlier than college.

For the fifth year in a row, we've rounded up the 50 most expensive boarding schools in the US. For the first time, five schools on our list exceed $60,000 in annual cost. Nearly a dozen others are skirting that number.

But what do these increasingly expensive price tags afford students? A number of impressive perks, from iPads for every student to state-of-the-art athletic and academic facilities and, sometimes, tickets into the Ivies.

To create this list, we looked at tuition, room and board, and noted mandatory fees, including one-time fees where applicable, to calculate the total cost for the 2015-16 school year. In instances where the school listed a variety of expected expenditures for books and other required materials, we used the average. (Special-needs schools and daytime-only schools were not taken into consideration for this list.)

SEE ALSO: The 50 smartest private high schools

NOW WATCH: The smartest public high schools in America

50. Choate Rosemary Hall

Location: Wallingford, Connecticut

Total cost: $55,621

Enrollment: 850

Choate celebrated its 125th anniversary this year with the dedication of a new mathematics and computer-science building that's LEED-Gold certified. The building is home to the i.d. Lab — a facility equipped with technology and tools to help students foster creative thinking and innovation.

49. Gould Academy

Location: Bethel, Maine

Total cost: $55,700

Enrollment: 240

The school's website says that northern winters are a cherished tradition. Gould Academy makes use of its close proximity to New England's premier ski resorts and mountains by offering students a number of competitive and non-competitive winter sports including alpine skiing and snowboarding. 

48. Villanova Preparatory School

Location: Ojai, California

Total cost: $55,800

Enrollment: 260

The Catholic institution's culture and curriculum is based on the biblical teachings of Saint Augustine: community, truth, and love. It's part of a network of Augustinian schools and universities in 38 countries.

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We recently released our seventh annual list of the 50 best colleges in America.

To create this list, we asked more than 1,000 BI readers to weigh in on which schools best prepare students for success after graduation.

Overall, 11% of survey respondents said they work in the media/marketing/PR industry and their choices for top colleges reflected that.

The top school according to people who work in media, marketing, or PR is Harvard University, which received a little over 61% of the vote. Columbia University came in second, with a 50% vote, and Stanford University took third place with a 48.3% vote.On our main list of the best colleges, Columbia University ranked No. 8, and here it jumped six spots to No. 2.

It seems that media professionals ranked schools with an engineering, mathematics, or computer science focus lower than those with strong social sciences programs, as MIT (the No. 1 school on our main list) dropped to No. 6 here.

Here are the top 25 colleges in the US, according to people who work in media:

1. Harvard University

2. Columbia University

3. Stanford University

4. Yale University

5. Duke University

6. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

7. Princeton University

8. New York University

9. (TIE) Dartmouth College

9. (TIE) Brown University

11. (TIE) Cornell University

11. (TIE) Georgetown University

13. University of California at Berkeley

14. (TIE) University of Pennsylvania

14. (TIE) Boston College

16. Carnegie Mellon University

17. University of Notre Dame

18. Boston University

19. (TIE) University of Chicago

19. (TIE) University of Virginia

19. (TIE) Northwestern University

22. University of Michigan at Ann Arbor

23. Johns Hopkins University

24. United States Navel Academy

25. Tufts University

SEE ALSO: The 50 best colleges in America

SEE ALSO: The 50 best colleges where students earn the highest starting salaries

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: These are the 9 best colleges in America

For our seventh annual ranking of the best colleges in America, we asked over 1,000 Business Insider readers to choose the colleges that best prepare their students for success after graduation.

We then combined those results with each school's average SAT score from College Board and the median starting salary from PayScale to come up with the final ranking. You can read the full methodology here.

Here, we've narrowed down our results to look at the best private colleges in the country.

SEE THE MAIN LIST: The 50 best colleges in America

SEE ALSO: The 24 best public colleges in America

50. Fordham University

Average SAT score: 1880

Median starting salary: $50,200

"The Jesuit University of New York" has two undergraduate campuses serving 8,633 students at Rose Hill in the Bronx and Lincoln Center in Manhattan. Fordham emphasizes giving and community service with over 1.2 million hours served by students in 2013. 

49. Brigham Young University

Average SAT score: 1890

Median starting salary: $51,800

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sponsors Brigham Young University and seeks to cultivate individuals of faith, intellect, and character. Last year, US News ranked Utah's BYU in the top 10 best-value schools. The most popular colleges where students study at BYU are Life Sciences and The School of Management. 

48. George Washington University

Average SAT score: 1950

Median starting salary: $47,700

Located in the nation's capital, GW established the world's first political communications major. This month, The Princeton Review named GW students the most politically active in the country. The most popular majors are social sciences, business and marketing, and healthcare – GW reportedly provides the second-highest number of service professionals among national universities.

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Today's most sophisticated aircraft are the things of science fiction.

In a few years, drones that can fit in the palm of a person's hand and 117-foot-wingspan planes that can launch satellites will both be a reality.

At the same time, drone and advanced-fighter technologies will spread beyond the US and Europe, and countries including China, Russia, and Iran may have highly advanced aerial capabilities.

Here's our look at the most game-changing aircraft of the past few years — and the next few to come.

F-35 Lightning II

The F-35 may cost as much as $1.5 trillion over its lifetime. But it's also supposed to be the most fearsome military aircraft ever built, a plane that can dogfight, provide close air support, and carry out bombing runs, all with stealth capabilities, advanced maneuverability, and the ability to take off and land on aircraft carriers.

It hasn't quite worked out that way so far, and problems with everything from the plane's software system to its engines has both delayed its deployment and made its costs spiral upward. And it isn't nearly as effective at close air support as existing platforms such as the A-10.

But the US has more than 1,700 of them on order. Like it or not, the F-35 will be the US' workhorse warplane for decades to come.

F-22 Raptor

The predecessor to Lockheed Martin's F-35 Lightning II is the single-seat, twin-engine F-22 Raptor, currently the world's most advanced combat-ready jet.

The US is the sole operator of the F-22 thanks to a federal law that prohibits the jet from being exported. Lockheed Martin built 195 of the planes before the last one was delivered to the US Air Force in May 2012.

Despite the program's high cost and the jet's advanced features, it only saw combat for the first time relatively recently, during the opening phase of the bombing campaign against the ISIS in late 2014.

T-50

Russia's Su-50, also known under the prototype name of the T-50 PAK-FA, is the Kremlin's fifth-generation fighter and its response to the F-35.

Though still at the prototype stage, Moscow thinks the Su-50 will ultimately be able to outperform the F-35 on key metrics such as speed and maneuverability. The stealth capabilities of the Su-50, however, are believed to be below those of both the F-22 and F-35.

The Kremlin plans to introduce the Su-50 into service by 2016. Once the plane is combat-ready, it will serve as a base model for the construction of further variants intended for export. India is already codesigning an Su-50 variant with Russia, and Iran and South Korea are possible candidates to buy future models of the plane.

For our seventh annual ranking of the best colleges in America, we asked over 1,000 Business Insider readers to choose the colleges that best prepare their students for success after graduation.

We then combined those results with each school's average SAT score from College Board and the median starting salary from PayScale to come up with the final ranking. You can read the full methodology here.

Here, we've narrowed down our results to look at the best private colleges in the country.

SEE THE MAIN LIST: The 50 best colleges in America

SEE ALSO: The 24 best public colleges in America

50. Fordham University

Average SAT score: 1880

Median starting salary: $50,200

"The Jesuit University of New York" has two undergraduate campuses serving 8,633 students at Rose Hill in the Bronx and Lincoln Center in Manhattan. Fordham emphasizes giving and community service with over 1.2 million hours served by students in 2013. 

49. Brigham Young University

Average SAT score: 1890

Median starting salary: $51,800

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sponsors Brigham Young University and seeks to cultivate individuals of faith, intellect, and character. Last year, US News ranked Utah's BYU in the top 10 best-value schools. The most popular colleges where students study at BYU are Life Sciences and The School of Management. 

48. George Washington University

Average SAT score: 1950

Median starting salary: $47,700

Located in the nation's capital, GW established the world's first political communications major. This month, The Princeton Review named GW students the most politically active in the country. The most popular majors are social sciences, business and marketing, and healthcare – GW reportedly provides the second-highest number of service professionals among national universities.

NOW WATCH: 5 signs you're going to be extraordinarily successful

We recently released our seventh annual list of the best colleges in America, which included schools from every corner of the US.

Here, we've narrowed down our results to look at the best public schools in the country.

To determine the rankings, we asked over 1,000 Business Insider readers to choose the colleges that best prepare their students for success after graduation. We then combined those results with each school's average SAT score from the college-data website College Board and the median starting salary from the employer-information website PayScale to come up with the final ranking. You can read the full methodology here.

Please note that this list drew from our original survey on the best colleges in the US, where survey respondents chose from a limited pool of what we perceived to be the top 100 schools in the US.

Did your school make the cut this year? Read on to find out.

SEE ALSO: The 50 best colleges in America

SEE ALSO: The 48 best colleges in the Northeast

24. University of Connecticut

Average SAT score: 1885

Median starting salary: $51,700

UConn has a built-out career services office, with resources both on campus and online. The online portal features a number of internship, co-op, and full-time job opportunities with companies like Pepperidge Farm, JetBlue, Unilever, and UBS, as well as a number of resources to help students apply and place there.

23. University of California at Irvine

Average SAT score: 1740

Median starting salary: $49,300

Part of the prestigious University of California system, UCI is known for its top-rated research programs, which provide opportunities for both undergraduate and graduate students alike to participate in research projects. And although it's a large school, the student to faculty ratio remains low — only 19:1 — and 50% of classes have 20 or fewer students. 

22. University of California at Davis

Average SAT score: 1815

Median starting salary: $50,800

UC Davis graduates enter a network of over 200,000 living alumni when they complete their degrees. While still in school, students have access to 104 major choices, preparing them for careers in everything from landscape architecture to microbiology to nutrition science.

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Apparently there's more than one way to earn a doctorate. 

While institutions of higher education have been criticized for awarding honorary doctorates to non-graduates, it hasn't stopped them from honoring accomplished musicians, artists, athletes, and actors for years. 

Many celebrities on our list hold not one, but two or even three honorary doctorates from some of the most prestigious universities in the world. 

Keep reading to find out which universities bestowed "Dr." upon the likes of Kanye West, Magic Johnson, and Jon Bon Jovi.

SEE ALSO: The 50 best colleges in America

SEE ALSO: 14 of the most famous kids in college this semester

Meryl Streep has three Ivy League honorary doctorates.

Meryl Streep is the recipient of four honorary doctorates, three of which come from the most prestigious universities in the country: Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. 

Most recently, the Academy-Award winning actress, who earned her own degree from Vassar College, received a Doctorate of Fine Arts from Indiana University at Bloomington for her cinematic talents and advocacy for women.

Ben Affleck was honored for his work in the arts.

The two-time Academy Award winner was honored with a Doctorate of Fine Arts at Brown University's 2013 commencement on the heels of immense success for his film "Argo," which he starred in and directed. Since then, he's settled into the role of Batman in the upcoming "Suicide Squad" and "The Justice League" series.

P. Diddy received an honorary doctorate from the college he dropped out of.

Sean "P. Diddy" Combs became Dr. Combs when he was honored with a Doctorate in Humanities during his commencement address at Howard University in 2014. Diddy enrolled in the university back in 1990 but dropped out shortly after to pursue a music career. Still, he said Howard University changed his life and he was humbled to receive a degree.

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People often tend to associate large universities with less individualized instruction and, overall, less prestige.

But our seventh annual ranking of the 50 best colleges in America suggested otherwise.

Our list ranks colleges by median starting salary, average SAT score, and a survey that asked more than 1,000 Business Insider readers to choose the colleges that best prepared students for success after graduation. Read our full methodology here.

More than a quarter of the colleges on our list clocked in with an undergraduate enrollment of more than 10,000 students. Read on to find out which large colleges made the cut.

SEE THE FULL LIST: The 50 best colleges in America

SEE ALSO: People who work in finance say these are the best colleges in America

12. Boston University

Undergraduate enrollment: 18,017

Average SAT score: 1945

Median starting salary: $50,100

The Boston University alumni community is full of Nobel Prize and Pulitzer winners, Fulbright scholars, and poets laureate. The school received over $350.3 million in grants and contract awards last year, powering it as one of the top research universities in the country.

11. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Undergraduate enrollment: 32,959

Average SAT score: 2030

Median starting salary: $55,000

Located about 140 miles south of Chicago, the University of Illinois is home to one of the largest public-university library collections in the world, with more than 24 million volumes across more than 20 area-studies libraries. Students can also take advantage of more than 400 study-abroad programs in more than 60 countries.

10. University of Texas at Austin

Undergraduate enrollment: 39,523

Average SAT score: 1900

Median starting salary: $52,200

Ranked No. 17 for top public universities in the country by US News and Money magazine, UT has nearly half a billion alumni all toting Longhorn pride, including award-winning actor Matthew McConaughey, filmmaker Wes Anderson, journalist Walter Cronkite, and many members of the Bush family. More than 15 of UT's undergraduate programs are ranked in the top 10 nationally.

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New York City is a magical place in the fall.

There are crisp days perfect for walks in the park, hot apple cider from local farmers markets, and football.

Plenty of events and festivals, from the New York City Marathon to the Wine & Food Festival, also take place.

Autumn officially starts Sept. 22, so get ready for the new season with our ultimate guide on what every New Yorker should do this fall.

SEE ALSO: 25 of the best free things to do this fall in London

FOLLOW US: BI Travel is on Twitter!

Feel the music of one of the many new shows opening on Broadway this fall. There's Fiddler on the Roof, The Color Purple, and Spring Awakening, among others. Buy tickets now during Broadway Week (Sept. 7-20) and score two-for-one tickets.

Click here for a schedule of upcoming shows >

Gorge yourself on sausages with peppers and cannoli at the Feast of San Gennaro in Little Italy, which runs Sept. 10-20.

For a map and event schedule, click here >

Pick apples at one of the gorgeous orchards in upstate New York, Connecticut, or New Jersey, where you can wander the grounds picking bushels of your own fruit.

Some good options near New York City include Applewood Orchards & Winery, Barton Orchards, Dr. Davies Farm, and Greig Farm.

For more suggestions, click here >

 The 2015 ranking of global universities has just been published by education specialists QS, ahead of the start of the academic year. You can take a look at the whole tables here. 

There's fierce competition for the top spots in every country.

The rankings are based on academic reputation, reputation with employers, student to staff ratio and the number of citations per academic paper the institution produces. They've produced their methodology here. 

Many of the best higher education institutions in the world are found in Europe, and we've got this year's top 20 listed below.

20. Ruprecht-Karls-Universitaet Heidelberg, Germany's oldest university, just sneaks onto the list. It was founded in 1386.

19. Delft Institute of Technology is one of two Netherlands-based universities that makes it onto the list. The school was established in the 1840s to train civil servants for the Dutch East Indies.

18. The University of Glasgow is one of two Scottish universities on the list, punching well above its weight with a population of around 5.3 million.

From sophisticated study abroad programs to state-of-the-art facilities, students at the most expensive private schools in the country enjoy opportunities that would make most people — adults included — jealous. 

This is the fifth year that we have created a list of the 50 most expensive private schools in America. As in past years, school tuitions across the board have risen. 

For the first time, The Lawrenceville School in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, was not the most expensive on our list, but instead was overtaken by another northeastern school: the Salisbury School in Connecticut.

We ranked the private high schools on our list by looking at tuitions and fees for the 2015-2016 year as listed on the schools' websites, including one-time fees where applicable. Where a range was given for books and supplies, we factored in the average cost, and calculated the total cost of attendance for the school. We did not include special needs schools or boarding-only schools on this list.

SEE ALSO: The 50 smartest private high schools in the US

FOLLOW US: Business Insider is on Twitter

50. Buckingham Browne & Nichols School

Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts

Tuition and fees: $42,320

Enrollment: 1,017

Incoming ninth graders spend eleven days at the beginning of their Upper School career on a camping trip getting to know their peers and teachers. This tradition is known as "Bivouac."

49. The Winsor School

Location: Boston, Massachusetts

Tuition and fees: $42,400

Enrollment: 430

The all-girls Winsor School has incredible facilities, including three art studios, seven spacious science labs, a recording studio, a multi-media language learning lab, a library, and an assembly hall in the main building alone.

48. The Masters School

Location: Dobbs Ferry, New York

Tuition and fees: $42,410

Enrollment: 475

Located atop a hill in the historic town of Dobbs Ferry, The Masters School recently released a new strategic plan for 2015–2020, which includes a new mission statement: "The Masters School celebrates active participation, deep understanding, and meaningful connection. A community of diverse individuals, we gather to learn, to strive, to dare, to do — to be a power for good in the world."

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We recently published our list of the 30 best hotels in the world. 

To create it, we aggregated five notable hotel rankings: Travel + Leisure's World's Best Hotel Awards, Condé Nast Traveler's Top 100 Hotels & Resorts (part of its annual Reader's Choice Awards), TripAdvisor's Top 25 Hotels in the World, Fodor's 100 Hotel Awards, and Jetsetter's Best of the Best Awards.

We gave each hotel a numerical rating based on how many lists it appeared on and how high it appeared on the lists that were ranked. Hotels that appeared on all five lists ranked higher on our list, while hotels that ranked on only one of these lists ended up closer to the bottom.

For Travel + Leisure's and Condé Nast Traveler's lists, which were both ranked one to 100, we gave a half point to any hotel appearing on the list, and then a bonus between 0 and 1 point based on where they appeared on the list, giving a total score between 0 and 1.5. For example, The Langham hotel in Chicago was ranked 90th by Travel + Leisure, so it received 0.5 points for appearing on the list, and then 0.11 bonus points for its eleventh from the bottom position, for a total Travel + Leisure score of 0.61.

For TripAdvisor's list, which was ranked out of 25, we assigned a similar score, giving a half point for appearing on the list and then a bonus from 0 to 1 based on the hotel's ranking.

Since the Fodor's and Jetsetter's lists were unranked, we simply assigned a hotel a half point for any hotel that showed up on the list.

We then tallied up the scores to create the final ranking. 

Here is the spreadsheet showing our calculations:

SEE ALSO: The 30 best hotels in the world

Join the conversation about this story »

One of the biggest measurements of success after college is how much graduates earn.

New data from College Scorecard, a website created by the US Department of Education that compares colleges and universities in a number of categories, reveals the median salary earned by graduates 10 years after attending their alma maters.

It's important to note that College Scorecard analyzed earnings data of students who received federal financial aid. We narrowed the list of schools down further to only include those with graduation rates of 85% or higher to ensure we were looking at degree-earning graduates.

Perennial favorites like MIT, Harvard, and Stanford top the list. Perhaps more surprising, schools like Massachusetts-based Babson College (No. 3) and liberal-arts school Lafayette College (No. 18) also rank highly.

Meanwhile, the high-paying fields of business and engineering are among the most popular courses of study at these schools.

Scroll down to see which colleges have the highest-earning grads.

SEE ALSO: The 50 best colleges in America

SEE ALSO: The 50 best colleges where students earn high starting salaries

25. Boston College

Median salary 10 years after attending: 
$67,000

Median federal student loan debt:
$19,000

Most popular major:
Business, Management, Marketing, and Related Support Services (20%)

24. Dartmouth College

Median salary 10 years after attending: 
$67,100

Median federal student loan debt:
$11,625

Most popular major:
Social Sciences (35%)

23. Santa Clara University

Median salary 10 years after attending: 
$67,700

Median federal student loan debt:
$20,500

Most popular major:
Business, Management, Marketing, and Related Support Services (31%)

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The average cost of attending a private college was $46,272 last year, but can cost upwards of $60,000 at some institutions.

Fortunately, there are plenty of great schools that cost far less than that.

For our seventh annual list of the 50 best colleges in America, we chose what we perceived to be the top 100 schools and surveyed over 1,000 Business Insider readers, asking them to choose the colleges they think best prepare students for success after graduation. Read more about our methodology here.

We looked at this list and broke out the schools that cost less than $25,000 annually. We considered tuition and mandatory fees.

Most of the schools on the list are public or state schools that grant cheaper tuition rates for in-state residents.

SEE ALSO: The 50 best colleges in America

SEE ALSO: The 50 colleges with the highest starting salaries

25. University of Connecticut

Tuition and fees: $13,366 (in-state), $34,908 (out-of-state)

Average SAT score: 1885

Median starting salary: $51,700

UConn has a built-out career services office, with resources both on campus and online. The online portal features a number of internship, co-op, and full-time job opportunities with companies like Pepperidge Farm, JetBlue, Unilever, and UBS, as well as a number of resources to help students apply and place there.

UConn is a place where "students can receive a stellar education without graduating with a mountain of debt,"according to Kiplinger's Personal Finance.

24. University of California at Irvine

Tuition and fees: $13,252 (in-state), $37,960 (out-of-state)

Average SAT score: 1740

Median starting salary: $49,300

Part of the prestigious University of California system, UCI is known for its top-rated research programs, which provide opportunities for both undergraduate and graduate students alike to participate in research projects.

UC Irvine ranked 23rd for best overall value and 19th for lowest student debt on Kiplinger's annual list of best-value public colleges in the US.

23. University of California at Davis

Tuition and fees: $13,951 (in-state), $38,659 (out-of-state)

Average SAT score: 1815

Median starting salary: $50,800

UC Davis graduates enter a network of over 200,000 living alumni when they complete their degrees. While still in school, students have access to 104 major choices, preparing them for careers in everything from landscape architecture to microbiology to nutrition science.

UC Davis makes scholarships and grants widely available, and 43% of students graduate entirely debt-free.

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Cost of living makes a big difference when choosing where to move — and not all places were created equal. 

We found the most affordable small town in every state.

To do this we looked at towns with populations between 1,000 and 10,000 whose households spend no more than 30% of their annual income on housing costs. We looked at the average cost of three types of housing — owned houses with a mortgage, owned houses without a mortgage, and rentals — and took a weighted average of these by the proportion of each type of home in the town.

Click here to read more about our methodology.

ALABAMA: Fayetteville

93% of homes are affordable.

An hour south of Birmingham, Fayetteville is actually named after a town in Tennessee from which early residents migrated. Employing over 33% of residents, retail is the most popular industry here, followed by manufacturing, which employs 15% of residents. 

ALASKA: Healy

91.5% of homes are affordable.

Only 11 miles from the Denali National Park and Preserve, Healy offers several lodging and dining options for park visitors, creating a strong tourism industry in the town. However, more than tourism, coal mining in nearby Usibelli Coal Mine makes up most of Healy's livelihood. 

ARIZONA: Quartzsite

93.2% of homes are affordable.

Just 18 miles east of the Colorado River, Quartzsite is best known for its beautiful assortment of rocks and minerals— as evidenced by its name. On first glance it might not sound like the most exciting industry, but the town's gem trade entices thousands of visitors per year. There is even a two-month-long gem show that starts in January. 

Being beautiful means big bucks.

Iconic supermodel Linda Evangelista once said that "I don't get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day," and it looks like nothing has changed in modelling world.

Models are becoming such business powerhouses that they command huge salaries for just a single campaign because of their personal branding.

Kendall Jenner, the half sister of reality TV show star Kim Kardashian, has become one the highest paid models in just one year, thanks to her millions of followers on social media. Brands know that if she puts a picture on Instagram or on Twitter, she'll could get the label more exposure than traditional adverts.

Meanwhile, modelling for lingerie firm Victoria's Secret gives models a massive boost to their careers and allows them to command some of the highest pay in the fashion world.

So we took at look at Forbes' latest data that covers the June 2014 and June 2015 period, to see who the biggest earners in the modelling industry are.

19. Jourdan Dunn: $3.5 million (£2.2 million). Dunn was discovered in a London branch of budget fashion retailer Primark and ended up securing deals with Maybelline and Calvin Klein. She also models for Tommy Hilfiger and Burberry.

18. Kate Upton: $3.5 million (£2.2 million). Upton's earnings halved from last year but her biggest gig was starring in the estimated $40 million Superbowl advert for Game of War.

17. Hilary Rhoda: $3.5 million (£2.2 million). She's still one of the highest paid models in the world but her earnings have dropped since Kendall Jenner took her contract as the face of Estée Lauder. She is still a model for Via Spiga, Elie Tehari, and Chopard.

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One of the biggest measurements of success after college is how much graduates earn.

New data from College Scorecard, a website created by the US Department of Education that compares colleges and universities in a number of categories, reveals the median salary earned by graduates 10 years after attending their alma maters.

It's important to note that College Scorecard analyzed earnings data of students who received federal financial aid. We narrowed the list of schools down further to only include those with graduation rates of 85% or higher to ensure we were looking at degree-earning graduates.

Perennial favorites like MIT, Harvard, and Stanford top the list. Perhaps more surprising, schools like Massachusetts-based Babson College (No. 3) and liberal-arts school Lafayette College (No. 18) also rank highly.

Meanwhile, the high-paying fields of business and engineering are among the most popular courses of study at these schools.

Scroll down to see which colleges have the highest-earning grads.

SEE ALSO: The 50 best colleges in America

SEE ALSO: The 50 best colleges where students earn high starting salaries

25. Boston College

Median salary 10 years after attending: 
$67,000

Median federal student loan debt:
$19,000

Most popular major:
Business, Management, Marketing, and Related Support Services (20%)

24. Dartmouth College

Median salary 10 years after attending: 
$67,100

Median federal student loan debt:
$11,625

Most popular major:
Social Sciences (35%)

23. Santa Clara University

Median salary 10 years after attending: 
$67,700

Median federal student loan debt:
$20,500

Most popular major:
Business, Management, Marketing, and Related Support Services (31%)

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We recently came out with our list of the 50 best colleges in America.

Many of the top schools — like MIT (No. 1), Stanford (No.2), and Harvard (No. 3) — appear on the east or west coasts of the States, but there are a number of incredible schools in the heart of America: the Midwest.

To create this list, we asked readers to choose the colleges that best prepare students for success after graduation from a list of what we perceived to be the top 100 schools in the country.

We combined the survey results with each school's average SAT score and the median starting salary. (You can read the full methodology here.)

We filtered our list down to show the top schools in the Midwest. Keep scrolling to see which colleges made it.

SEE ALSO: The 50 best colleges in America

SEE ALSO: The 50 best colleges where students earn high starting salaries

15. Macalester College

Average SAT score: 1990

Median starting salary: $41,200

St. Paul, Minnesota's Macalaster College ranked seventh in the nation, according to US News, for commitment to teaching. And some of the classes taught at the St. Paul, Minnesota-based college are quite unusual: Some of its "cutting-edge courses" include "inside the animal mind,""constructions of a female killer," and "the automobile and the American environment."

14. Kenyon College

Average SAT score: 1995

Median starting salary: $46,400

With more than 50 majors, minors, and interdisciplinary concentrations, Kenyon makes it easy for students to customize their educations and create a course of study that's right for them. The Gambier, Ohio-based school offers lifetime career services for alumni, and gets alumni involved in hiring other Kenyon students for internships, externships, and other employment opportunities.

13. Grinnell College

Average SAT score: 2093

Median starting salary: $43,100

Call Grinnell the gateway to a grad degree, if you will: 10 years after graduation, 51% of Grinnellians hold advanced degrees from institutions like Harvard, Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, and the London School of Economics. Other students at the Grinnell, Iowa-based school find employment with companies like Mayo Clinic, Nickelodeon, and the Kauffman Foundation. The school is located in Grinnell, Iowa.

NOW WATCH: 5 signs you're going to be extraordinarily successful

Many will agree that being your own boss sounds like an appealing lifestyle, but few have what it takes to make it as a small business entrepreneur.

We sought out the freshest, most innovative businesses in New York City, focusing our search on places that have opened within the last five years.

Though we included some tech startups, we mostly focused on brick and mortar shops, since we already published a list on the hottest startups in New York.

Some of these businesses, like a mobile app designed to help you find parking, aim to make your life easier, while others, like a cat cafe, will just make your life more fun.

Did we miss any cool new businesses? Let us know in the comments section.

SEE ALSO: The 21 coolest new businesses in Los Angeles

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Alumnifire

Online platform, based in New York

What it is: A superior professional networking platform for college alumni.

Why it's cool: Many college graduates don't take advantage of their alumni networks, but they should, as nine out of 10 alums would prefer to hire fellow alums. Alumnifire aims to offer a more usable alumni network. Alumnifire allows users to post discussion topics and to private message one another with the end goal of helping connect more job hunters with those hiring.

B.E.C.

148 Eighth Ave., Chelsea, Manhattan

What it is: A bacon, egg, and cheese mecca.

Why it's cool: The mac-and-cheese of breakfast foods has found a home in NYC. Bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches have long been a comfort food, but B.E.C. is taking it to the gourmet level.

B.E.C. combines toppings like tomato compote with pickled jalepeños to make its bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches desirable far past the breakfast hour. They also offer a selection of hearty soups and salads throughout the day.

Bierleichen

582 Seneca Ave., Ridgewood, Queens

What it is: A heavy-metal German-style beer hall.

Why it's cool: Queens' new beer bar offers 10 beers on tap, delicious German food such as bratwurst and pretzels, and live music.

If you're not feeling the meat and potatoes, never fear — the bar also offers vegan, gluten-free, and soy-free sausages. And it's all guilt-free, as part of Bierleichen's proceeds go to New York City's Coalition Against Hunger.

Over 80 years ago, bartenders and drinkers alike kept the nation's booze knowledge alive in speakeasies during prohibition. 

While the temperance movement is long gone, the hidden bars prevail. From upscale dress codes to passwords, these establishments transport you back to a time when drinking was an experience.

We dug up the hottest and most exclusive speakeasies throughout the US, where you can sip a proper cocktail and lose yourself in the atmosphere.

Melissa Stanger and Melia Robinson contributed to an earlier version of this post. 

SEE ALSO: 30 iconic American hotel bars everyone should have a drink at

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ATLANTA, GEORGIA

The Chapter Room
5600 Roswell Rd.

Join the Brewniversity craft beer loyalty club to gain access to this modern-day speakeasy in the basement of the Taco Mac, which puts a large emphasis on craft beer. The Chapter Room maintains no fewer than 18 different kinds on draft at a time, as well as many others in bottles. Cozy up to Bobb, the bar's "overseer," and you may also have access to the rare and limited edition beers in his secret stash.

AUSTIN, TEXAS

Midnight Cowboy
313 E. 6th St.

Midnight Cowboy was formerly a massage parlor, and still sports the original "Midnight Cowboy Modeling Oriental Massage" sign out front. Reservations are required and parties can't exceed eight people. Ring the buzzer marked "Harry Craddock" to enjoy creative cocktails, and be sure to leave all your mobile devices behind — they have no place at this lounge.

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

The Owl Bar
1 E. Chase St.

The Owl Bar is nestled in the historic Hotel Belvedere, which has been serving fancy mixed drinks, beer, and wine for over 100 years. During prohibition, owl statues around the bar would appear to wink if there was whiskey in the basement. The bar served as the stomping grounds for a number of famous and non-famous Baltimore natives.