Engineering at Bard College at Simon's Rock

Drawing from just three engineering programs in Massachusetts, the estimated figures here suggest a debt load of $19,000 against first-year earnings around $78,211—a ratio that would typically signal strong financial footing for new graduates. That debt-to-earnings picture looks considerably better than the national engineering benchmark of $26,056 in debt, though the earnings estimate sits right at the state median.

The challenge is what these estimates don't reveal about Simon's Rock specifically. This early college designed for younger students operates quite differently from traditional four-year programs, and its 97% admission rate suggests a fundamentally different student population than engineering powerhouses like Olin. With only three MA engineering programs producing this estimate, you're essentially looking at an average that includes everything from Olin's $109,000 outcomes to Smith's $53,571—a $55,000 spread that makes the midpoint figure less meaningful for predicting what Simon's Rock graduates actually experience.

For a non-traditional school with no reported outcomes data, that uncertainty matters more than the promising estimate. If your student thrives in Simon's Rock's unconventional environment and completes the engineering degree, comparable programs suggest manageable debt. But with this program generating too few graduates to report, you're investing in an unproven track record where the actual returns could land anywhere in that vast MA range.