I attended Carleton College (Northfield MN) in the early 1960s. The school has always been a top-rated small 4-year liberal arts US college, and it's reputation probably explains in part some of my later success in life. I was not a good student there, but the very fact that I went there signaled to grad schools and others that at some point in my life I had worked hard enough and done well enough to be a Carleton student.
It turns out that students from Carleton College do quite well later in life. I expect that having to deal with the cogency of so many conflicting views from professors and classmates plays a major role in preparing Carleton students for later life beyond the ivory tower.
Comparing their actual mid-life incomes with what similar students earn but who attended other schools, Carleton comes out quite well, ranking 5th in the US:
There's something about the Triple C* that pays off financially, I guess.
My father died two years before I finished high school and my mother had just started teaching, with a quite low salary. I attended Carleton on a terrific needs-blind-admission financial aid plan: 1/3 work, 1/3 grant/scholarship, and 1/3 loan. I was lucky.
*Triple C: Carleton Christian College (its original name), also Cows, Contentment, and Colleges (a slogan for Northfield MN, where Carleton College is located [wtf is with including Faribault as a co-location in that table? Is that the name of some new, regional municipality?])