Harvey Mudd College ranked 4th in a new study released this week that shows which U.S. colleges and universities provide the best return on investment over a 30-year period, coming in close after the top three: MIT, Caltech and Harvard.

A typical Harvey Mudd College graduate can expect to see a 12.5 percent annual return on their college investment, with a 30-year net ROI totaling $1,627,000. MIT topped the list with a 12.6 percent annual return on investment, totaling $1,688,000 over 30 years. Caltech came in second with a $1,644,000 ROI — also 12.6 percent annually, and Harvard University ranked third with a 12.5 percent ROI, totaling $1,631,000. The study was conducted by PayScale, an online salary and compensation information company.

The study compared data from 852 institutions and calculated the 30-year net return on investment based on the difference between the amount earned by graduates from 1980 to 2009 and the earnings of a typical high school graduate, after deducting the costs of obtaining a college degree and taking into account lost wages from time spent in school. The study found that graduates of top schools will earn $1 million more than those without a college degree, and appears to support the longtime belief that attending an elite university matters in terms of future earning power.

"There is no doubt about the article's general accuracy," said Gary Evans, Ruth and Harvey Berry Professor of Entrepreneurial Leadership at Mudd. "We provide undergraduate majors in fields that, although they may require a graduate degree, pay the highest salaries over a lifetime from the various professions that one might choose. This is confirmed by the US Department of Labor Occupational Outlook Handbook. We offer terminal degrees that are valuable, but primarily we are a respected conduit to the finest professional graduate programs in the world. If you combine that with the excellent caliber of student that we are privileged to teach and some of the finest undergraduate teachers in the country, you get that result. The double-digit ROI, which is probably the way that a lot of parents look at it, is almost certainly true and in my opinion, that yield will rise in the future."

Read the Wall Street Journal article.