Graduates of a small West Coast college are earning more than Harvard and Stanford alums. Here’s why.

Some of the highest-earning college graduates in the US may not have a Harvard degree hanging on the wall.

In a recent Business Insider ranking of US colleges with the highest-earning graduates, a small Bay Area school focused on health sciences outperformed Stanford and Harvard, as well as the rest of the Ivy League schools.

Meet Samuel Merritt University, a nursing and health-focused private nonprofit university in Oakland, California, with fewer than 1,000 undergraduate students.

Graduates from the university have a median income of $148,182 four years after graduation, ranking third in the country for graduate pay according to the US…