Physics at Rollins College

A debt-to-earnings ratio of 0.49 suggests manageable financial risk—your graduate would earn roughly twice what they owe in their first year. However, the numbers here deserve scrutiny. Both earnings and debt figures are estimated from national medians of similar programs, not actual Rollins outcomes, so you're working with educated guesses rather than hard data on where this school's physics majors actually land.

The estimated $47,670 first-year salary sits below what comparable programs report in Florida, where the median is $50,960. UCF physics graduates earn $55,826 their first year—over $8,000 more. That gap matters when you're considering a selective liberal arts college with a 41% admission rate and strong SAT scores. Physics programs can vary dramatically based on faculty connections, research opportunities, and internship pipelines, factors that don't show up in these estimates.

The estimated $23,120 debt load is reasonable, slightly below the national median for physics programs. But without knowing how Rollins specifically supports its physics graduates—whether they're landing research positions, engineering roles, or graduate school placements—you're betting on the general success of physics degrees rather than this program's particular strengths. If Rollins can demonstrate strong graduate school placement or industry connections in Florida's growing aerospace and tech sectors, that would validate the investment beyond what these proxy numbers suggest.