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College degrees still mostly have a good ROI. The huge lie is the ROI on pedigree, prestige, whatever you want to call it. Kids are still being told to apply to

College degrees still mostly have a good ROI. The huge lie is the ROI on pedigree, prestige, whatever you want to call it. Kids are still being told to apply to expensive small private schools and to worry about the financial aid process later. Kids are told to find the right fit. None of that really matters. The big ROI is just getting a degree or the type of degree. There are few elite schools that have a much better ROI but they tend to be very generous with financial aid anyway. Also, community colleges are a great resource. As long as community colleges exist, we shouldn't even allow student loans for the freshman and junior year. You can do your first two years while working part time to pay the very minor tuition. Then you can transfer to another school. Every flagship state school takes tons of transfers. My buddy transferred from a podunk community college to Stanford. And when you transfer you should go to a cheap school. Unless you get a great college scholarship, it should be your state's flaghship public school. Nortwestern is a great school, but not 150k better than UIUC (and for engineering its not better period). If you get a nice financial aid award, great, but otherwise don't go. My college counselor in high school was telling people to pay full price for DePaul instead of UIUC just because they wanted a "city experience." No, that's not worth it.

jordanmoconnor 10y ago
If only I had talked to you 7 years ago...
qmalzp 10y ago
*freshman and sophomore year
pfooti 10y ago
I agree with this 100%. I went to a state school (michigan state) on an academic scholarship instead of going to rensselaer or MIT, where i'd been accepted but with a lot more loans in my financial aid package. It's conceivable that I'd have had a better job right out of college, especially given the network effects of the big-name schools, but I got an excellent education. Of course, my job prospects were helped by grad school (UC Berkeley), but by that time I knew very well what I wanted to Be When I Grew Up, so the investment was worth it (and ended up being very small, as I managed to live cheaply (it was the early 2000s) and swing a grad assistantship most of the time. On top of all that, the stuff I'm doing means I have to keep learning all the time, so the actual stuff I learned as an undergrad and in grad school was far less important than the habits of mind I acquired there that made me a good learner. Bargain hunting for an education is really important. I've met lots and lots of people since graduating, some were amazing at their jobs and could get work anywhere and some were ... not. That didn't seem to correlate much with alma mater. So yeah: a college degree can be great, but you don't need to go to a small elite private school to hone your analytical, technical, communication, and creative skills. It's way more about making use of what's available.
da02 10y ago
How did he get accepted into Stanford? Academic qualifications plus leadership/extra-circular activities? Or solely on grades?
- rhino369 10y ago
  Stellar academics and test scores. He did a stint in the army so that might have helped, but didn't seem very involved in extra-circulars.
labster 10y ago
Depends on the job. If you want to get on the US Supreme Court, you have to go to Yale or Harvard. But in general yes, it's a good idea to shop around. It also depends on the field you want. CSU Northridge is a pretty marginal school, but it's great at geology.
- rhino369 10y ago
  Law is a big outlier in general. There the degree doesn't matter at all, only the prestige. But I still wouldn't recommend paying 200k to go to Yale if Northwestern offered you a full ride. There is one SCOTUS job every 4-5 years. For law, I'd say get a scholarship or aid at a great school or don't go at all. In many ways grad school is an outlier in general. It's often just not worth it to get a PhD from a less respected institution. The difference is that most PhD programs pay you, not nice versa.
evanreichard 10y ago
> Also, community colleges are a great resource. I think my lackluster grades in High School were actually a blessing in disguise. I attended Rockland Community College (as no one would accept me anywhere else) and received an A.A.S. in Cyber Security with a very high GPA. Due to my performance at my CC I received a great academic scholarship to Rochester Institute of Technology. I graduated RIT with just more than $15k in loans. I'm glad it went the way it did. But, coming out of HS the stigma of CC was palpable, and it shouldn't be - the education at my CC was surprisingly good. Many of my peers who graduated with me at RIT, and those who graduated with me in HS but went straight to private well renowned schools, are in 10x more debt than me. Luckily I'm the oldest off all my cousins, and will be drilling this into them when they start looking at schools.

jordanmoconnor 10y ago

If only I had talked to you 7 years ago...

qmalzp 10y ago

*freshman and sophomore year

pfooti 10y ago

I agree with this 100%. I went to a state school (michigan state) on an academic scholarship instead of going to rensselaer or MIT, where i'd been accepted but with a lot more loans in my financial aid package. It's conceivable that I'd have had a better job right out of college, especially given the network effects of the big-name schools, but I got an excellent education. Of course, my job prospects were helped by grad school (UC Berkeley), but by that time I knew very well what I wanted to Be When I Grew Up, so the investment was worth it (and ended up being very small, as I managed to live cheaply (it was the early 2000s) and swing a grad assistantship most of the time. On top of all that, the stuff I'm doing means I have to keep learning all the time, so the actual stuff I learned as an undergrad and in grad school was far less important than the habits of mind I acquired there that made me a good learner. Bargain hunting for an education is really important. I've met lots and lots of people since graduating, some were amazing at their jobs and could get work anywhere and some were ... not. That didn't seem to correlate much with alma mater. So yeah: a college degree can be great, but you don't need to go to a small elite private school to hone your analytical, technical, communication, and creative skills. It's way more about making use of what's available.

da02 10y ago

How did he get accepted into Stanford? Academic qualifications plus leadership/extra-circular activities? Or solely on grades?

rhino369 10y ago
Stellar academics and test scores. He did a stint in the army so that might have helped, but didn't seem very involved in extra-circulars.

labster 10y ago

Depends on the job. If you want to get on the US Supreme Court, you have to go to Yale or Harvard. But in general yes, it's a good idea to shop around. It also depends on the field you want. CSU Northridge is a pretty marginal school, but it's great at geology.

rhino369 10y ago
Law is a big outlier in general. There the degree doesn't matter at all, only the prestige. But I still wouldn't recommend paying 200k to go to Yale if Northwestern offered you a full ride. There is one SCOTUS job every 4-5 years. For law, I'd say get a scholarship or aid at a great school or don't go at all. In many ways grad school is an outlier in general. It's often just not worth it to get a PhD from a less respected institution. The difference is that most PhD programs pay you, not nice versa.

evanreichard 10y ago

> Also, community colleges are a great resource. I think my lackluster grades in High School were actually a blessing in disguise. I attended Rockland Community College (as no one would accept me anywhere else) and received an A.A.S. in Cyber Security with a very high GPA. Due to my performance at my CC I received a great academic scholarship to Rochester Institute of Technology. I graduated RIT with just more than $15k in loans. I'm glad it went the way it did. But, coming out of HS the stigma of CC was palpable, and it shouldn't be - the education at my CC was surprisingly good. Many of my peers who graduated with me at RIT, and those who graduated with me in HS but went straight to private well renowned schools, are in 10x more debt than me. Luckily I'm the oldest off all my cousins, and will be drilling this into them when they start looking at schools.