College is really, really worth your money
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College is really, really worth your money
1–10 of 31 posts
Re: College is really, really worth your money
#2From the article:
" Over the course of his working life, a college-educated white male .... will have earned about $2.3 million. His high-school-educated white-male partner will have earned $1.2 million."
Let's say college costs $100,000 (tuition plus opportunity cost of income, etc). Now let's say instead of spending that $100,000 on college we invested the money instead at 6% per year returns. That will give you $1,028,572.
The difference between college and no college is about $1,100,000.
My point isn't that college isn't worth it (most of the time I think it is). My point is that the gains are not as great as a simplistic comparison might suggest.
On a final note: The analyses comparing college to no college rarely adjust for things like IQ or emotional intelligence, which should really be the included so that there's no bias towards college simply because the smarter more conscientious part of the population decides to attend and complete college.
Re: College is really, really worth your money
#3From the article: " Over the course of his working life, a college-educated white male .... will have earned about $2.3 million. His high-school-educated white-male partner will have earned $1.2 million." Let's say college costs $100,000 (tuition plus opportunity cost of income, etc). Now let's say instead of spending that $100,000 on college we invested the money instead at 6% per year returns. That will give you $1…
I'd like to refine this calculation after including the interest rates on student loans.
Re: College is really, really worth your money
#4I think that comparing earnings is missing the point of attending university or college. If what we want is vocational schools then I think that we should discuss that instead.
Re: College is really, really worth your money
#5The trouble is it doesn't compare like with like. College graduates are people with greater than average IQ and other skills. In the past (just 20 years ago) when less people went to college they were even more likely to have greater skills than the average person.
Are there any studies that show the college "premium" for more closely matched people? Perhaps based on SAT scores. So we could see the premium for a person with 1000, 1500, 2000 SAT score of going to college vs not.
Re: College is really, really worth your money
#6I don't believe dropping out is necessarily the better option, but the article doesn't argue why not dropping out is.
The data needs to be adjusted for the fact that "college educated" has become an entrenched label in society. Without the label, society values a person much less. That is all the data in the article proves.
Re: College is really, really worth your money
#7The single-value averages here are worthless. At the very least, control for degree.
Re: College is really, really worth your money
#8I don't buy it. Looking at college-educated versus high-school educated people is the wrong comparison when advising people whether to go to college or not. The relevant populations are people like you who went to college and people like you who decided against college.
Re: College is really, really worth your money
#9I don't believe dropping out is necessarily the better option, but the article doesn't argue why not dropping out is. The data needs to be adjusted for the fact that "college educated" has become an entrenched label in society. Without the label, society values a person much less. That is all the data in the article proves.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but the article uses data to show that society values college-educated people more, and you want it to adjust for this? What?
Re: College is really, really worth your money
#10From the article: " Over the course of his working life, a college-educated white male .... will have earned about $2.3 million. His high-school-educated white-male partner will have earned $1.2 million." Let's say college costs $100,000 (tuition plus opportunity cost of income, etc). Now let's say instead of spending that $100,000 on college we invested the money instead at 6% per year returns. That will give you $1…
So let's say that everyone takes this advance and doesn't go to college.
How does the economy earn that 6% return?