UC San Diego was recently ranked fourth among 850 public universities for potential return on investment, comparing increased earnings expectations to the cost of education, a recent salary report from the website PayScale.com reports.

There are a few caveats, however. First, the report considers that a student pays the in-state resident cost of tuition. The university, however, has in recent years followed a trend among other schools in the University of California system to bring in more foreign and out-of-state students, who pay higher tuition rates.

There’s also consideration to be made for the availability of preferred majors. Although, for example, UCSD boasts a nationally-recognized biology department, a lack of funding has caused the campus to limit the number of students enrolling in the major.

Further, tuitions are on the rise at the school, and a popular “transfer admission guarantee” that allows local students to complete some of their undergraduate-level courses at the community college level is set to come to an end in 2014.

Still, the PayScale report shows that an average graduate can expect to earn $647,100 more than a comparable high school grad over a 30 year period, an annual rate of return of 10.8 percent on the degree.

According to the report nearly two-thirds of the undergraduate population receives need-based tuition assistance, and 45 percent of students receive federal Pell Grant funds for low-income students.