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It seems that The Payscale.com website did a study comparing hundreds of colleges across the nation, and their “return on investment.”
Quote:
The report, ... cites the top private university as being California Institute of Technology, and explains that school’s “return on investment” over the course of a lifetime is $1.7 million.
Now by my own calculating. If you graduate at 22 and work until your 65, you would have a working career of 43 years.
$1.7Million divided by 43 years gives you an average annual gross income of $39k. So that means that as an engineer from a tech college you can expect to work a minimum-wage job, slowly climb in salary and then peak maybe earning somewhere around $45k/year.
$1.7Million may sound like a lot, but when stretched out over 43 years, not so much.
thats not what the number means
according to the article:
"The calculations are based on the average amount that alumni of their respective colleges earned working – minus the total cost of college – and the amount that would have earned as a high school graduate.”
So they earned 39k per year MORE than the hs grad, not 39k total
Although you may have misinterpreted the study, and it may be on a right wing nutjob website, what you were saying sill applies.
There are many schools which have a negative ROI. One very surprising one is UNC Asheville, which has made various "Top Value" lists, so, the cost of attending there is already comparitively low.
I've been saying for years that if you dont attend a top 50 school, and someone else isnt paying for it, you might as well not even bother, because you are probably going to come out no better then what the guy directly entering the workforce out of high school is doing, but youll be in a boatload of debt.
Although you may have misinterpreted the study, and it may be on a right wing nutjob website, what you were saying sill applies.
There are many schools which have a negative ROI. One very surprising one is UNC Asheville, which has made various "Top Value" lists, so, the cost of attending there is already comparitively low.
I've been saying for years that if you dont attend a top 50 school, and someone else isnt paying for it, you might as well not even bother, because you are probably going to come out no better then what the guy directly entering the workforce out of high school is doing, but youll be in a boatload of debt.
i agree with you, though i might extend it to top 100 provided the amount of debt is reasonable (under 20k or so). on the other hand there aren't a lot of clear options for non-college bound students these days. careers for them exist but there's not enough education on this in high school with the focus being on college instead.
It depends on what the student majors in. Everyone likes to harp on how useless history and English Literature M.S. programs are, but if you get your degrees and Ph.D. you can eventually teach and become a tenured professor. Sad our society now trashes anyone who has interests other than forensic accounting.
On the other side of the coin, the "green jobs" graduate certificates and programs do seem to be a fad, not seeing many at University going far with those, at least in some regions.
Although you may have misinterpreted the study, and it may be on a right wing nutjob website, what you were saying sill applies.
There are many schools which have a negative ROI. One very surprising one is UNC Asheville, which has made various "Top Value" lists, so, the cost of attending there is already comparitively low.
I've been saying for years that if you dont attend a top 50 school, and someone else isnt paying for it, you might as well not even bother, because you are probably going to come out no better then what the guy directly entering the workforce out of high school is doing, but youll be in a boatload of debt.
The study was done by a reputable company. The real data is linked below:
I think your top 50 threshold is completely arbitrary and not useful. I think graduates of the typical large public schools with a business, engineering, or science degree will likely do very well. And many of these schools would not be considered "top 50".
Our two children paid their own way through college and neither had any debt when they finished. Our son went to the Navy and saved $10,000 while he was there and got his GI Bill after he was out. He received a scholarship because of high grades (graduated 3rd in his class of agribusiness at N. C. State). When he finished college he still had the $10,000 he had saved while in the Navy.
Our daughter found a weekend job at a factory that paid almost as much as the weekly workers made. It was a very difficult job. She scheduled all her classes on Tuesday and Thursdays until the last class that could not be scheduled that way. She then scheduled that class in the Summer and finished her degree at the end of Summer. Her degree was in marketing. She went to work in marketing and found the hours too long and wanted to get to know her baby when it was born so she worked at her daughter's day care. She ended up being the manager of the daycare and they offered her the job of overseeing all their day cares, but she turned that down.
Then at 40 she decided to be a nurse and the hospital she was working in as the nurse recruiter paid for her nurses training. She graduated nursing school with honors.
I worked at a library and saw some of what is going on with the students. Sometimes it is a matter of I.Q. level. I don't consider the person with the highest salary as the most successful student or adult. I have tried to help college students with their work and a couple of these come to mind. Both were in elementary education fields. I had never seen anything like it. Sometimes you wonder how a person gets through college when they have a list of books to read and you explain to that person that the books are filed by the authors last name and they cannot find the books. The other person was about as bad as this with numbers for non-fiction books.
I think education is a very good thing, but I do not think our government should be footing the bill for college. Maybe it would be better to let those that can figure out a way to go to college without student loans to be the ones with the college degree. And when they get the education, maybe their I.Q. level will be high enough so they can benefit from the education. We do not need educated idiots.
I think getting an education is only part of the experience that everyone should go through... I think working right after high school won't work for 99% of the people... it doesn't have to be a university, it could be a technical school, vocational school, etc. The average debt is about $29k which is about the price tag for a nice new car and the experience you get from school is priceless... Meet new people, experience new things, explore the world, and then decide what you want to do... but do keep a level head and focus on your studies... and most importantly, the taxpayers aren't your mom and dad, they aren't there to pay your bills..
I think your top 50 threshold is completely arbitrary and not useful. I think graduates of the typical large public schools with a business, engineering, or science degree will likely do very well. And many of these schools would not be considered "top 50".
Speaking of arbitrary
I graduated from a public school with a 30k student body, with a degree in Finance, almost 8 years ago. I have yet to even crack the median salary offered to college graduates, and have been laid off twice.
Then again, according to that report, my lifetime ROI is only going to be about 120k over high school any how, so, I probably shouldnt expect to pass up the average high school grad until my 40's.
Last edited by Randomdude; 04-26-2012 at 10:24 AM..
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