I have a different perspective.   I&#x27;m in my mid-30s, and I&#x27;m considering going to college.  Now, I can get very senior sysadmin&#x2F;sre roles, and believe I could get a mid-level swe role (certainly could get a junior swe role)<p>Point being, I do okay;  the Stanford budget of $65K&#x2F;yr[1] would be super easy if I could work a half-time job&#x2F;half-time school;  or something of that nature, and comparing to getting accepted by Stanford[2], paying for it should be trivial.   I&#x27;ve talked employers into letting me work part-time before.<p>I guess that what I&#x27;m saying is that for a nerd, the real cost here is not what you pay for college, it&#x27;s the time off work.   Now, maybe it is worth it and maybe it is not,[3]  but even when I was 18 (in 1998)  I was making close to $50K&#x2F;yr.[4]     Considering how everything has gone, I bet that was rather more than Stanford charged at the time.<p>I mean, sure, I see that it&#x27;s a problem that people pay that much for a degree that doesn&#x27;t convey a lot of privilege, but if my impression of how much privilege is implied by a degree from a top school is correct, two or three hundred grand for such a degree is downright cheap.   We&#x27;re talking like two Teslas, and as far as I can tell, it doesn&#x27;t depreciate like a car does, unless the school falls in reputation later on.<p>I don&#x27;t want to make light of the problems people who work in lower-paying fields have, and personally, I think it sounds absolutely crazy that you ask people who are all but children to decide if they want to take out loans without the fallback of bankruptcy, and I personally don&#x27;t have a problem to some extent subsidizing people who want &quot;education for education&#x27;s sake&quot; -people who want to get educated and then work in a poorly remunerated field, but I&#x27;m just saying that as far as I can tell, at least for us nerds, if a school can do what is says it can do[5] and you aren&#x27;t capable of doing that by yourself, at today&#x27;s prices, it&#x27;s a hell of a deal.<p>[1]<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;financialaid.stanford.edu&#x2F;undergrad&#x2F;budget&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;financialaid.stanford.edu&#x2F;undergrad&#x2F;budget&#x2F;</a><p>[2]And qualifying for Stanford will take a lot of test prep, effort and luck on my part.  Qualifying is not anywhere near a sure thing for me;  and that&#x27;s the first step.   If I can&#x27;t get into a top-20 type school... I&#x27;m probably not gonna bother. My impression is that the benefits drop off pretty sharply.<p>[3]My impression is that if I want to continue on as an individual contributor, a degree, even a Stanford degree isn&#x27;t gonna get me all that much.  I already can get pretty good individual contributor gigs.  But, if I ever want to switch fields or advance into management, a degree from a top college would be extremely valuable.<p>[4]I haven&#x27;t yet gone over all the tax details here; all numbers are pre-tax.   I do have an accountant, though; <i>if</i> I manage to qualify, I will spend the money to learn what the tax status of educational expenses are in my case.   Obviously, if you have to pay for college out of post-tax dollars, that makes a huge difference (and makes the &quot;work half time&#x2F;school half time&quot; bit essential, because you earn less and pay less in taxes)<p>[5]The theory is that a school can take a normal person and teach them how to do my job.    Maybe this is true, maybe it&#x27;s not, but <i>If</i> you accept that as true, then even top schools are not expensive.