The 50 most underrated colleges in America

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The University of Houston is one of the top five most underrated colleges.

• There are many wonderful colleges and universities in the US that are sometimes overlooked in major rankings.
• College preparation and admissions consulting firm CollegeVine identified 50 colleges that offer great educational and career opportunities but don't always appear at the top of traditional lists.
• Binghamton University, San Jose State, and City College of New York land in the top five.

While top-rated US colleges are household names, there are plenty of other, sometimes overlooked, schools that offer great educational and career opportunities.

College preparation and admissions consulting firm CollegeVine assembled a ranking of the most underrated colleges and universities in the US. To compile the ranking, it evaluated several career- and outcome-based metrics for each of the schools, including cost of attendance and financial aid, career outcomes, and overall return on investment.

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Schools were given a score out of 100 for each of those metrics, with schools being rewarded for scoring better on those measures than their traditional rankings from publications like US News and World Report would suggest.

Here are the 50 most underrated colleges in the US, according to CollegeVine's measures: