A new measure of a college's value has placed Clarkson University in Potsdam and St. Lawrence University in Canton among the 200 U.S. colleges likely to "pay you back."

The Princeton Review's new method of marketing their college rankings, a "Return-on-Education" (ROE) rating, distilled results from a survey of 650 colleges and universities down to 200, or about a third of the number surveyed.

The company based its ROE rating on data collected in 2013-14 from its surveys of administrators and students, plus surveys of alumni of the same schools conducted by PayScale.com through April 2014.

The guide is an expansion of The Princeton Review’s annual Best Value Colleges list, in which St. Lawrence has been included for more than 10 years and is named a Great School for Mathematics Majors as well Best Northeastern College. The Princeton Review’s Guide to 332 Green Colleges, which was published in April, also included St. Lawrence, according to the press release from the university.

Meanwhile Clarkson grads have some of the highest salaries in the nation, according to Payscale's 2015 College Salary Report, the news release from Clarkson said.

The survey reporting had a senior Princeton Review employee saying exactly the same things about St. Lawrence and Clarkson, according to the press releases from both schools.

“We salute and highly recommend (St. Lawrence University/Clarkson University) and all of our Colleges That Pay You Back schools,” Princeton Review’s senior vice president, publisher, and survey lead writer Robert Franek is quoted as saying in the press releases from the respective schools.

“They stand out for their excellent academics, impressive career preparation services, and affordability to students with need – via comparatively low sticker prices, generous financial aid, or both. Plus their students graduate with great career prospects,” Franek is quoted as saying in both releases.

In the book’s profile of St. Lawrence, The Princeton Review editors praise the school for its “excellent Career Services Office” and quote from students who described college professors who “genuinely care about the success of all of their students and put forth an efforts to produce those results.”