Is college worth it? A return-on-investment analysis
It makes my flesh crawl to see college reduced purely to ROI, but at least they&#x27;re honest that that&#x27;s what they&#x27;re doing.<p>I just hope people at least consider all of the other &quot;outputs&quot; of going to college when reading something like this. The ROI analysis is good data, it answers an important question. But there are many, many other important questions worth answering. (And most of them aren&#x27;t quantifiable, so it&#x27;s not like you could do a study on them if you wanted to.)<p>College can be an awful experience for some people even if they end up making good money. And it can be an excellent life experience for people who end up making dirt. I got lucky -- I had a great experience, I learned a lot of important non-academic things, I broke out of my shell, <i>and</i> it&#x27;s pretty directly responsible for a large portion of my earnings. (And yes, the numbers for my university and major from the study match my current income and age quite well.)<p>But now I have a kid in high school, and I&#x27;m facing all the questions about what futures to keep open and what ones to sacrifice in the service of others. College is much more expensive now. My family was dirt poor and so I had massive financial aid; any financial aid my kid gets will have to be merit-based. Degree inflation has sucked away a lot of the value of having a degree. I can afford to support a less secure (low-risk) path through life if I think it would be better for my kid as a human being. These are not easy questions to be facing.