Sunday, April 28, 2013

Is It Worth Paying Big Bucks to Go To College?

Unless you can get into an elitist school, don't blow your money on an expensive college, go to a community college says WSJ:

With unemployment among college graduates at historic highs and outstanding student-loan debt at $1 trillion, the question families should be asking is whether it's worth borrowing tens of thousands of dollars for a degree from Podunk U. if it's just a ticket to a barista's job at Starbucks. When it comes to calculating the return on your investment, where you go to school does matter to your bank account later in life.

Not surprisingly, research has found that a degree from a name-brand elite college, whether it's Harvard, Stanford or Amherst, carries a premium for earnings. But the 50 wealthiest and most selective colleges and universities in the U.S. enroll less than 4% of students. For everyone else, the statistics show that choosing just any college, at any cost for a credential, may no longer be worth it.[...]

Think a community-college degree is worth less than a credential from a four-year college? In Tennessee, the average first-year salaries of graduates with a two-year degree are $1,000 higher than those with a bachelor's degree. Technical degree holders from the state's community colleges often earn more their first year out than those who studied the same field at a four-year university.

Take graduates in health professions from Dyersburg State Community College. They not only finish two years earlier than their counterparts at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, but they also earn $5,300 more, on average, in their first year after graduation.

In Virginia, graduates with technical degrees from community colleges make $20,000 more in the first year after college than do graduates in several fields who get bachelor's degrees. Yet high-school seniors are regularly told that community colleges are for students who can't hack it on a four-year campus.[...] 
Colleges don't like being measured by the earnings of their graduates. Defining value in such a narrow way, they argue, obscures the broader benefits of higher education. They point out that first-year salaries often have no bearing on earnings later in life. It's true that those with bachelor's degrees typically earn more over a lifetime than those with a two-year degree, but that's little consolation to those who are discouraged from going to community colleges and end up dropping out of a four-year school without a degree. 
For decades, U.S. colleges have promoted the economic benefits of higher education. But now that they can no longer ride the coattails of the national averages—which obscure the value of individual schools and make everyone look good—higher-education leaders suddenly think salary is too narrow a measure.

3 comments:

  1. "Colleges don't like being measured by the earnings of their graduates. Defining value in such a narrow way, they argue, obscures the broader benefits of higher education. "

    This is one of the the primary problems of University "education" today. The University is seen, not as a means of providing students with a means to earn a living, but rather as the catalyst to creating an informed global citizenry. Administrators and professors, who are by and large hostile toward the market, would rather teach students about the evils of capitalism, the "humiliation" of the market, patriarchy, and the like, than provide them with the tools necessary to compete in a global market.

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  2. I highly recommend students to get their degrees by examination and then transfer to a distance learning school like Thomas edison state college or charter oak. You get the accreditation without all the nonsense costs.

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  3. Is It Worth Paying Big Bucks to Go To College?

    Dunno, can't do the math...

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