Liberal Arts and Sciences, General Studies and Humanities at Maharishi International University

A liberal arts degree with an estimated debt-to-earnings ratio of 0.67 sounds manageable on paper, but for Maharishi International University, the bigger issue is what we don't know. Both the earnings and debt figures here come from other Iowa liberal arts programs, not from this school's actual graduates—the Department of Education suppresses the data when graduate samples are too small to reliably report.

The estimates themselves track closely with state medians: $40,400 in first-year earnings matches what similar Iowa programs produce, and $27,000 in debt falls right in line with the state average of $26,700. That puts MIU's theoretical outcomes near middle-of-the-pack programs like University of Northern Iowa rather than top performers like Simpson College, whose graduates earn about $3,200 more annually. With an admission rate of 97% and more than half of students receiving Pell grants, the university serves students who may have limited options, which makes the lack of actual outcome data particularly frustrating for parents trying to evaluate value.

The reality is that you're making this decision essentially blind. The ratio suggests the debt could be paid off in about eight months of gross earnings if you lived on nothing else—a common rule of thumb says anything under 1.0 is reasonable—but that assumes the estimates reflect what actually happens to MIU graduates. Before committing, you need direct answers from the school about where their liberal arts graduates actually land and how much they actually borrow.