Is college worth the cost?

Getting a degree is a sign that you are smart enough to get a degree. Getting one from a good school is that much better. The biggest loss if you learned the exact same material on your own outside a university is that others aren't signaled that you've received that education.

If you build something good, it doesn't matter where you are. People know you're smart from what you've done.

There are millions of people paying for a credential that means less as more people get it. Companies treat college degrees as a sign that you're not a total failure.

It would be nice if there were better tests for ability. They work for things like the SAT II, but I can't imagine an accurate test for post-graduate ability besides a review of what you've made.

But companies are lazy. They don't have the time or money to really look at the quality of most candidates, so they use signaling tools as filters.

Public, especially an in-state school if your state is fortunate enough have a quality one, definitely yes.

College: still the best four years of your life. (Then again, I've yet to live the four years one would experience after selling a startup for big money. Maybe we could get input from pg or that Broadcom guy who built the underground party den)

There are many confounding factors: People who are more intelligent, have parent(s) who pursued higher education, have parents with higher income, or are white are both more likely to receive a bachelor's degree AND on average earn more than other people with the same amount of education. (In the past, being male was a predictor for both higher education and higher earnings, but this is not a significant factor for people born after 1980.)

In addition, the statistic ignores the fact that pursuing higher education shortens one's career -- people who spend 4-5 years in college on average work for 2-3 years less than those who started their careers immediately after high school. As a result, comparing "40-year careers" is bogus -- the only reasonable comparison is between the total careers of individuals, including the time when one person is at college while the other is working.

Finally, even if the statistic were computed correctly and reflected causation, it would be misleading: Different careers are not influenced equally by education. Generally speaking, people don't finish their education before they start thinking about what career the will pursue; someone who was planning on becoming a plumber isn't likely to suddenly decide that he wants to become a brain surgeon just because he finds that he has a bachelor's degree.

Decide what you want to do (either as a single career, or more likely thinking of a number of careers which seem interesting), and look at what qualifications are needed for those. And never forget what Benjamin Disraeli said: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics".

I went to a community college paid for entirely by scholarships, so the cost to me as far as money goes was only that of the books. The largest cost to me, though, was the time invested in classes where I learned very little.

Back to money though, my pay jumped $2.75/hr at my day job as a direct result of getting my two associates degrees.