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Is College Worth It?

priceonomics.com

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Re: Is College Worth It?

#21

Post by greenyoda »

lkrubner wrote: post #2

I have a problem with this method: "Payscale draws on its information about alumni salaries. It calculates the expected earnings of a newly minted graduate over a 30 year career by summing the median incomes of alumni from his or her school who graduated between one and 30 years ago." Yes, I know that college was worth it 30 years ago, and even 15 years ago, and even 10 years ago. That is not the real question. The q…

"Yes, I know that college was worth it 30 years ago, and even 15 years ago, and even 10 years ago. That is not the real question. The question is will this continue to be true in the future?"

I think that's a very good point, considering that (1) the cost of college education has been rising very steeply in recent years and (2) unemployment and underemployment among college grads is currently very high (there are tons of college grads who would be overjoyed if they could only get an unpaid internship).

If you really want to treat a college education as an investment, you have to keep in mind the disclaimer that anyone selling an investment has to make:

"Past performance is not a guarantee of future results."

Re: Is College Worth It?

#22

Post by jseliger »

Here's the other problem with this method of asking, "Is college worth it?": as far as I know, Alex Mayyasi doesn't collect data on dropouts.

Starting and finishing at a public school in four years is almost certainly worth it for most people. Starting and dropping out, especially when you're more than one semester in, is a disaster, and the dropout numbers for many schools are staggering. I was a grad student at the University of Arizona in English Lit and routinely saw that something like half of those who enrolled as 18-year-old freshmen matriculated within six years.

The rest? Some presumably had parents to pay, but many were stuck with loans that couldn't be effectively discharged through bankruptcy and other normal means. The U of A, and other universities, pay no price for this. They have no skin in the game.

I've written more about this here: http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/10/22/the-problem-with-ju... and elsewhere.

Re: Is College Worth It?

#24

Post by Mikeb85 »

It's not about whether or not college is worth it, but rather what you want to get out of it and your expectations... You can't expect every degree to optain you a good paying job, certainly not without some creativity and a little extra curricular effort anyway...

Re: Is College Worth It?

#25

Post by BigChiefSmokem »

I make six figures with just an AA degree that has nothing to do with technology.

When I'm interviewed it is clear I know what I'm doing and have the experience and passion to back it up. Maybe I'm lucky, or maybe I don't think or act like the rest of the "real" college grads.

At some point you have to really be honest with yourself and with others about what it is you're looking for and are willing to work for in life. The rest will fall into place for you.

Re: Is College Worth It?

#26

Post by cadlin »

The graph titled "Best and Worst Median Starting Salaries Ranked by College Major" is mislabelled.

Looking at the source material[1], the table it's based on is titled, "[TABLE] 12: TOP 10 MAJORS WITH THE HIGHEST MEDIAN EARNINGS" and is data on "Full-time, full-year workers with a terminal Bachelor’s."

So it's not about starting salaries at all.

[1]http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/whatsitwor...

Re: Is College Worth It?

#27

Post by cperciva »

Payscale subtracts the median wage of a high school graduate...

This is a common mistake, and one which completely invalidates the process. The median high school graduate is someone who wasn't able to get into college, and many of the factors associated with that -- starting with low high school grades -- are also associated with lower earnings. You might as well say that purring results in pets gaining legs, because pets which purr have on average more legs than pets which don't purr.

To get any accurate measure of the value of going to college, you need to compare students who are similar in all ways except college attendance. Of course, this is a difficult thing to do, since it involves looking at high school grades, SAT scores, parental income, parental education, and gender at a minimum -- all of these factors are known to correlate with both individual educational achievement and individual earnings.

Re: Is College Worth It?

#28

Post by Mikeb85 »

greenyoda wrote: post #19

Isn't a $98K median starting salary for math and CS grads a bit high? Yes, the few lucky ones who get a job at Google or Facebook or an investment bank might make six figures right out of school, but it doesn't seem like there would be enough of those jobs to pull the median up that high. The average CS grad probably won't end up working for an internet company; there are probably many more programming jobs in corpor…

Investment banks pay alot for both CS and Math grads... A programmer will make a lot more at a Wall Street firm than at Google or Facebook...

Re: Is College Worth It?

#29

Post by diminoten »

Wait, 98k starting salary for Math/Computer Science is median? In the US?

What?!?! This does not mesh with my experiences or the experiences of my peers at all. If you want to include the financial industry, you're talking about the top 1% of salaries, if that. Are they so disparate that they drag the median up that much?

Edit: Looking at the source data[0], they've separated "Computer Science" and "Mathematics" from "Math and Computer Science". What is the purpose of this? Is "Math and Computer Science" a specific major?

[0] http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/whatsitwor...

Re: Is College Worth It?

#30

Post by maxk42 »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #28
greenyoda wrote: post #19

Isn't a $98K median starting salary for math and CS grads a bit high? Yes, the few lucky ones who get a job at Google or Facebook or an investment bank might make six figures right out of school, but it doesn't seem like there would be enough of those jobs to pull the median up that high. The average CS grad probably won't end up working for an internet company; there are probably many more programming jobs in corpor…

Investment banks pay alot for both CS and Math grads... A programmer will make a lot more at a Wall Street firm than at Google or Facebook...

Fantastic -- that might pull the mean up, but it still wouldn't affect the median.
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