Take a tour of Harvey Mudd College, the tiny STEM ‘bootcamp’ outside Los Angeles whose graduates out-earn Harvard and Stanford alums

Mudders are a studious bunch.Tanza Loudenback/Business Insider

Located in Claremont, California is an 829-person liberal arts college that might go unnoticed to the uninitiated. It’s not a member of the Ivy League, nor does it have the celebrity of Stanford University, its neighbor to the north.

In fact, if you’re not familiar with the Claremont Consortium, you’ve probably never heard of the school.

Harvey Mudd College is a STEM powerhouse. It routinely shows up on lists that rank the best value colleges and, based on median salary, its graduates out-earn those from Harvard and Stanford about 10 years into their careers.

With a price tag for tuition, room, and board of $71,939 a year, it’s the most expensive college in the US. But the sticker price comes with a strong return on investment. Its peer institutions, like the California Institute of Technology, praise its computer science curriculum.

Business Insider recently had the opportunity to tour Mudd to see for ourselves, from the rooftop classroom to the underwater robotics lab.

Here’s what it’s like to attend Harvey Mudd College.