7 ms·

Is college worth the cost?

21 points by jyrzyk 19y ago

ivankirigin 19y ago
There is an interesting group of ideas around intelligence, education, credentialism, and signaling. 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.
deleted 19y ago
[deleted]
jraines 19y ago
Private, no. (Northwestern and NYU are up to $48K a year just in tuition. Are you kidding me?) 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)
- especkman 19y ago
  You do know that a lot of people going to private schools aren't paying full-price, right? Need based financial aid grants are often available (ie not loans) and sometimes they are substantial. I've known people who have paid less for a private school than they would have at a state school.
  - jraines 19y ago
    Yeah, I guess I didn't really consider that -- based on how the question was phrased I was trying to consider the whole range of potential costs of college from the most outrageously high to free.
    - especkman 19y ago
      It's a fair outer bound to place. I just like to be really clear about the fact that people don't necessarily pay sticker price at private schools. I've volunteered for my alma mater at college fairs and there are a lot of people who are interested and then freak when they see the tuition. I have to imagine that there are an equal number who don't even stop by our table because they've done just enough research to think "expensive."
      - vlad 19y ago
        How about a "nutrition chart" requirement for each college of any type? It would disclose the lower, more average charge per student over 4 years computed by each college using federal standards. Secondly, the government should run the loan program themselves for public universities, since it's a lot cheaper for it to offer loans than to subsidize banks to do the same.
        especkman 19y ago
        The government used to have more involvement in the student loan programs. My father started up a non-profit under the state board of regents to service guaranteed student loans in Utah in the late 70s or early 80s after the feds passed some big program. They did quite well for a few years, until the regents made them transfer everything to various banks and shut the thing down because it had the potential to be fabulously profitable.
  - falsestprophet 19y ago
    You know a lot of people are paying full price.
dawie 19y ago
Yes it is. I believe that the best investment you can ever make is in yourself. Colledge cost me $40K and I have made more than $160K in 2 years after Colledge working. I have made an 33% ((40/120) * 100) on my investment in myself and its still growing. The growth of my investment in myself is infinite and way bigger than any other investment.
- AdamG 19y ago
  The _price_ of college is only a small fraction of the _cost_ of college. And yes, I learned this in an economics class... in college.
cperciva 19y ago
This article includes one of the most misleading statistics concerning higher education: "People with bachelor's degrees... still earn an average of about $1.2M more than high school graduates over a 40-year career". Yes, there is a correlation between higher education and higher salaries -- no, this does not imply causation! 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".
- Alex3917 19y ago
  For various reasons it's actually fairly difficult to do controlled studies like you say. I know a guy doing a study right now who is actually running it backwards. That is, instead of looking at how GPA affects future income, he is looking at how past income affects GPA. For example, business school students usually work for a while before getting their MBA. If you think that students with higher GPAs should earn more money after they graduate, then presumably you also would expect that students who earn more money before going to business schools will get higher GPAs. The best traditional studies show that GPA accounts for about 3% of job performance, as measured by income and performance reviews among other things. (IIRC Alfie Kohn cites this study in his book What Does It Mean To Be Well Educated?) It will be interesting to see whether or not running the study backwards yields similar results.
mynameishere 19y ago
People should be apprenticed at 13, and should enter professions at about 18. Only jobs requiring memorization of a large body of prior work (medicine or science) need more than that.
- especkman 19y ago
  Yeah, I'm glad we haven't formalized that system in the US.
  - mynameishere 19y ago
    You got a lot of upmods but I don't even understand your comment. What are you talking about?
    - especkman 19y ago
      In some countries (Germany for example), students have been herded into career tracks at a fairly early age. So, some 13 year old may be sent on a path towards becoming an auto mechanic, while another is guided off to become a surgeon or some other professional. I'm sure there are ways to break out of your track, but there is a big formalized system working against you. In the US, someone can spend all of high school in auto shop, and still have a chance of changing directions and ending up with a successful career at 33 that some bureaucrat never would never have predicted 20 years earlier. If may take him longer than the kid whose parents and teachers were guiding them towards medicine or business from age 13, but the doors are open. I think this is a strength of the US, both economically, and with respect to various liberal, democratic, egalitarian ideals. It isn't perfect though. There are certainly people would be happier and better off if they started learning a trade at an earlier age.
- run4yourlives 19y ago
  I agree. Let's start em' in the coal mines! You first.
  - mynameishere 19y ago
especkman 19y ago
Let me propose the radical idea that a college education is not solely justified by it's monetary value.
- Jd 19y ago
  preach it brother!
- adamdoupe 19y ago
  Can one really put a price on learning how to do a kegstand properly?
  - mattmaroon 19y ago
    $27.95
    - adamdoupe 19y ago
      Who are you charging for this, and how can I get in on the action?
- deleted 19y ago
  [deleted]
- steve 19y ago
  women. beer.
- run4yourlives 19y ago
  Let me propose the radical idea that you can learn a lot - perhaps more - outside of college. :-)
nfriedly 19y ago
For me, college was absolutely worth the cost. Focusing on more than just the money, I met dozens of current and potential business clients. My side work as a freelance web developer has come mostly through people that I met in college. 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.
- steve 19y ago
  There's another cost, some jobs you just won't be able to do when you have a wife, kids, and lots of loans to pay every month. At college age is part of the very short time in your life where you are free from all this and can easily focus on something harder than virtually anyone else. Of course, the majority of people will never consider even performing at this potential. But could it be different if college as we know it wasn't so severely required? That's the first cost that came to mind when I read the title. On the other hand, there were some good parties and women.
  - jraines 19y ago
    Shotgun weddings and medical emergencies aside, nobody's going to force anybody to get married, have kids, and take on a heavy debt burden. Screw the Joneses. And this isn't to say you should be a bachelor for life; I'm sure there are women out there who value freedom and a man who's willing to make sacrifices and go his own way in search of that freedom.
    - steve 19y ago
      Should I limit myself to that supposed "woman out there" who is willing let me work for many months at a time? I hear that worked out great for hans reiser.
bmaier 19y ago
If you haven't realized it yet, most of the education you're paying for in college isn't found in a classroom. College is a nice buffer against the transition to the real world where you can take risks without consequences for the most part. A lot of a college's value comes from your peer group, which is why smart people congregate at the top schools for the most part (aside from career prospects and prestige).
aswanson 19y ago
Mine was free. However, a flaw in my character led me to believe that a) It was trade applicable 2) They would teach me to build things. I studied electrical engineering, and it was mostly applied mathematics and physics with little systemic perspective. If I had to do it all over again, I would have studied pure mathematics, comp sci, and physics and built things on my own. But hey, free is free.
rokhayakebe 19y ago
Take it from someone who quit. If you want to climb the corporate ladder than definitely go to college and sell your parents house to finance it. It will be worth it. I've seen it work. If you want to build your own ladder (as what I am doing now), then I suggest you check that college thing again. I look around and I see my friends who graduated from school and they all make 1.5 to twice what I make a year, but not for long. The difference shows sometimes in our lifestyle and the way we look at the future. They see title, I see users. They see corporate car, I see users. They see 401k, I see Acquisition. Their biggest dream is to make Project manager or CEO. Fuck it I am CEO, and my wildest dream is to get that call from Sergey asking me for advices.
- trekker7 19y ago
  Cool post. Do you have a website going right now? What do you do?
  - rokhayakebe 19y ago
    I sort off have a website for the consulting stuff I do now, but because I sometimes get crazy here I would like to keep that aside. As for what I do, I had 2 jobs and left one lately. Now I am focus on my main one, as a part of a mobile software devel team ( I am not a coder, just a talker, but I sure know how to bring in deals ).
- run4yourlives 19y ago
  >Project manager Good god you're friends dream small...
chaostheory 19y ago
Like a lot of things in life, it depends on what you want and how you want to get there. It also depends on the institution's culture (we're going to ignore GetDrunkAndParty U). For technical and engineering pursuits, a good college is a great place to get a fast and wide overview of theory, competing technologies (or philosophies), and different specializations/tech aspects (database, programmer, ...). (I think this is why I'm more of a generalist as opposed to java or php master...) More importantly, (a good) college puts a lot of smart, driven people in the same place and time. Going to college allows you to form important relationships with these people that can strongly affect both your personal and professional life both now and in the future. I think both Apple and Microsoft are great examples of my last point. Finally (assuming you got a useful degree), in case all your entreprenuerial endeavors fail in the short term; a degree can net you a high paying job with a lot of free cycles to relax/regroup and get ready to start that next idea you have =)
far33d 19y ago
Name one other place where are surrounded by smart, thinking people of the same and opposite sex constantly for 4 years. Name one other place where the law basically doesn't apply and you are basically encouraged to take huge risks with your friendships, your learning, and your life (sometimes). Sure, college is expensive. Sure, you have to do a lot of things you don't want to do. But, you also don't have many opportunities to learn things that are totally impractical from true experts in the field. Take advantage. Love every minute. Get out of there and do something amazing. Last, a lot of the people I met in college are incredibly smart and amazingly successful. Some of them work on the most innovative software around. Some write for world-renowned publications. And some of them just have really rich parents. No matter what, if you go to a good university, you will meet people that will help you someday later. Yah, privilege is a bitch, but if you have the opportunity to have it, why not?
- AdamG 19y ago
  Because it makes you feel guilty? I find the feelings of guilt and responsibility are very much intertwined. It seems the best-adjusted people don't feel either.
  - far33d 19y ago
    I try not to feel guilt about it. Rich white folks get what they want through privilege. Going to a top notch college is a great equalizer for everyone else who wasn't lucky enough to be born to the right parents - if you can get there.
imgabe 19y ago
Here's some interesting numbers. Let's say you go to a college for four years and it costs $25,000/year, $100,000 total. To pay for it, you take out some college loans at 7% interest that have to paid back in 10 years. So, your loan payment is $1161.08/month. In total you'll pay $139,329 by the time the loan is paid off. So, you earn 1.2 million more over your life time than the non-college grad, but after the cost of college you're only ahead by about $1,060,000. I'm supposing here that by "over your lifetime" means until you retire, that is say from age 22 to age 65. Now, suppose you don't go to college but instead you start working at 18. You apply yourself to your job, learn what you can on your own time, and by age 22 you've got four years experience and you've been promoted the point that you can sock away $1161.08 per month in savings. Say you do this for 10 years and keep the money in a conservative mutual fund that earns an average return of 7% per year. After the 10 years are over you've got $200,965 in savings. At this point, you stop investing. Even with no additional money, by the time you're 65 (33 years later) you'll have $2,011,064.27 or roughly $1 million more than the guy who invested his money in college. Of course these are just some made up numbers. A lot of people who aren't motivated to go to college are probably also not motivated to save that much money and live that frugally. If college costs you less than $25,000 per year it might be worth it, or you might go into a profession that allows you to earn way more than $1.2 million more than the average high school grad. On the other hand, lots of colleges cost a good deal more than $25k/year. Also, the high school grad might invest his money more aggressively and earn more than 7% interest. It would be interesting to see where the crossover point is in terms of college cost, loan interest rate, investment interest rate, and so on. The point remains that a return of 1.2 million over 43 years on a $100,000 investment is pretty crappy (around 5.8% compounded monthly, slightly better than an online savings account)

21 points by jyrzyk 19y ago

There is an interesting group of ideas around intelligence, education, credentialism, and signaling. 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.

deleted 19y ago

[deleted]

jraines 19y ago

Private, no. (Northwestern and NYU are up to $48K a year just in tuition. Are you kidding me?) 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)

especkman 19y ago
You do know that a lot of people going to private schools aren't paying full-price, right? Need based financial aid grants are often available (ie not loans) and sometimes they are substantial. I've known people who have paid less for a private school than they would have at a state school.
- jraines 19y ago
  Yeah, I guess I didn't really consider that -- based on how the question was phrased I was trying to consider the whole range of potential costs of college from the most outrageously high to free.
  - especkman 19y ago
    It's a fair outer bound to place. I just like to be really clear about the fact that people don't necessarily pay sticker price at private schools. I've volunteered for my alma mater at college fairs and there are a lot of people who are interested and then freak when they see the tuition. I have to imagine that there are an equal number who don't even stop by our table because they've done just enough research to think "expensive."
    - vlad 19y ago
      How about a "nutrition chart" requirement for each college of any type? It would disclose the lower, more average charge per student over 4 years computed by each college using federal standards. Secondly, the government should run the loan program themselves for public universities, since it's a lot cheaper for it to offer loans than to subsidize banks to do the same.
      - especkman 19y ago
        The government used to have more involvement in the student loan programs. My father started up a non-profit under the state board of regents to service guaranteed student loans in Utah in the late 70s or early 80s after the feds passed some big program. They did quite well for a few years, until the regents made them transfer everything to various banks and shut the thing down because it had the potential to be fabulously profitable.
- falsestprophet 19y ago
  You know a lot of people are paying full price.

dawie 19y ago

Yes it is. I believe that the best investment you can ever make is in yourself. Colledge cost me $40K and I have made more than $160K in 2 years after Colledge working. I have made an 33% ((40/120) * 100) on my investment in myself and its still growing. The growth of my investment in myself is infinite and way bigger than any other investment.

AdamG 19y ago
The _price_ of college is only a small fraction of the _cost_ of college. And yes, I learned this in an economics class... in college.

cperciva 19y ago

This article includes one of the most misleading statistics concerning higher education: "People with bachelor's degrees... still earn an average of about $1.2M more than high school graduates over a 40-year career". Yes, there is a correlation between higher education and higher salaries -- no, this does not imply causation! 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".

Alex3917 19y ago
For various reasons it's actually fairly difficult to do controlled studies like you say. I know a guy doing a study right now who is actually running it backwards. That is, instead of looking at how GPA affects future income, he is looking at how past income affects GPA. For example, business school students usually work for a while before getting their MBA. If you think that students with higher GPAs should earn more money after they graduate, then presumably you also would expect that students who earn more money before going to business schools will get higher GPAs. The best traditional studies show that GPA accounts for about 3% of job performance, as measured by income and performance reviews among other things. (IIRC Alfie Kohn cites this study in his book What Does It Mean To Be Well Educated?) It will be interesting to see whether or not running the study backwards yields similar results.

mynameishere 19y ago

People should be apprenticed at 13, and should enter professions at about 18. Only jobs requiring memorization of a large body of prior work (medicine or science) need more than that.

especkman 19y ago
Yeah, I'm glad we haven't formalized that system in the US.
- mynameishere 19y ago
  You got a lot of upmods but I don't even understand your comment. What are you talking about?
  - especkman 19y ago
    In some countries (Germany for example), students have been herded into career tracks at a fairly early age. So, some 13 year old may be sent on a path towards becoming an auto mechanic, while another is guided off to become a surgeon or some other professional. I'm sure there are ways to break out of your track, but there is a big formalized system working against you. In the US, someone can spend all of high school in auto shop, and still have a chance of changing directions and ending up with a successful career at 33 that some bureaucrat never would never have predicted 20 years earlier. If may take him longer than the kid whose parents and teachers were guiding them towards medicine or business from age 13, but the doors are open. I think this is a strength of the US, both economically, and with respect to various liberal, democratic, egalitarian ideals. It isn't perfect though. There are certainly people would be happier and better off if they started learning a trade at an earlier age.
run4yourlives 19y ago
I agree. Let's start em' in the coal mines! You first.
- mynameishere 19y ago

especkman 19y ago

Let me propose the radical idea that a college education is not solely justified by it's monetary value.

Jd 19y ago
preach it brother!
adamdoupe 19y ago
Can one really put a price on learning how to do a kegstand properly?
- mattmaroon 19y ago
  $27.95
  - adamdoupe 19y ago
    Who are you charging for this, and how can I get in on the action?
deleted 19y ago
[deleted]
steve 19y ago
women. beer.
run4yourlives 19y ago
Let me propose the radical idea that you can learn a lot - perhaps more - outside of college. :-)

nfriedly 19y ago

For me, college was absolutely worth the cost. Focusing on more than just the money, I met dozens of current and potential business clients. My side work as a freelance web developer has come mostly through people that I met in college. 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.

steve 19y ago
There's another cost, some jobs you just won't be able to do when you have a wife, kids, and lots of loans to pay every month. At college age is part of the very short time in your life where you are free from all this and can easily focus on something harder than virtually anyone else. Of course, the majority of people will never consider even performing at this potential. But could it be different if college as we know it wasn't so severely required? That's the first cost that came to mind when I read the title. On the other hand, there were some good parties and women.
- jraines 19y ago
  Shotgun weddings and medical emergencies aside, nobody's going to force anybody to get married, have kids, and take on a heavy debt burden. Screw the Joneses. And this isn't to say you should be a bachelor for life; I'm sure there are women out there who value freedom and a man who's willing to make sacrifices and go his own way in search of that freedom.
  - steve 19y ago
    Should I limit myself to that supposed "woman out there" who is willing let me work for many months at a time? I hear that worked out great for hans reiser.

bmaier 19y ago

If you haven't realized it yet, most of the education you're paying for in college isn't found in a classroom. College is a nice buffer against the transition to the real world where you can take risks without consequences for the most part. A lot of a college's value comes from your peer group, which is why smart people congregate at the top schools for the most part (aside from career prospects and prestige).

aswanson 19y ago

Mine was free. However, a flaw in my character led me to believe that a) It was trade applicable 2) They would teach me to build things. I studied electrical engineering, and it was mostly applied mathematics and physics with little systemic perspective. If I had to do it all over again, I would have studied pure mathematics, comp sci, and physics and built things on my own. But hey, free is free.

rokhayakebe 19y ago

Take it from someone who quit. If you want to climb the corporate ladder than definitely go to college and sell your parents house to finance it. It will be worth it. I've seen it work. If you want to build your own ladder (as what I am doing now), then I suggest you check that college thing again. I look around and I see my friends who graduated from school and they all make 1.5 to twice what I make a year, but not for long. The difference shows sometimes in our lifestyle and the way we look at the future. They see title, I see users. They see corporate car, I see users. They see 401k, I see Acquisition. Their biggest dream is to make Project manager or CEO. Fuck it I am CEO, and my wildest dream is to get that call from Sergey asking me for advices.

trekker7 19y ago
Cool post. Do you have a website going right now? What do you do?
- rokhayakebe 19y ago
  I sort off have a website for the consulting stuff I do now, but because I sometimes get crazy here I would like to keep that aside. As for what I do, I had 2 jobs and left one lately. Now I am focus on my main one, as a part of a mobile software devel team ( I am not a coder, just a talker, but I sure know how to bring in deals ).
run4yourlives 19y ago
>Project manager Good god you're friends dream small...

chaostheory 19y ago

Like a lot of things in life, it depends on what you want and how you want to get there. It also depends on the institution's culture (we're going to ignore GetDrunkAndParty U). For technical and engineering pursuits, a good college is a great place to get a fast and wide overview of theory, competing technologies (or philosophies), and different specializations/tech aspects (database, programmer, ...). (I think this is why I'm more of a generalist as opposed to java or php master...) More importantly, (a good) college puts a lot of smart, driven people in the same place and time. Going to college allows you to form important relationships with these people that can strongly affect both your personal and professional life both now and in the future. I think both Apple and Microsoft are great examples of my last point. Finally (assuming you got a useful degree), in case all your entreprenuerial endeavors fail in the short term; a degree can net you a high paying job with a lot of free cycles to relax/regroup and get ready to start that next idea you have =)

far33d 19y ago

Name one other place where are surrounded by smart, thinking people of the same and opposite sex constantly for 4 years. Name one other place where the law basically doesn't apply and you are basically encouraged to take huge risks with your friendships, your learning, and your life (sometimes). Sure, college is expensive. Sure, you have to do a lot of things you don't want to do. But, you also don't have many opportunities to learn things that are totally impractical from true experts in the field. Take advantage. Love every minute. Get out of there and do something amazing. Last, a lot of the people I met in college are incredibly smart and amazingly successful. Some of them work on the most innovative software around. Some write for world-renowned publications. And some of them just have really rich parents. No matter what, if you go to a good university, you will meet people that will help you someday later. Yah, privilege is a bitch, but if you have the opportunity to have it, why not?

AdamG 19y ago
Because it makes you feel guilty? I find the feelings of guilt and responsibility are very much intertwined. It seems the best-adjusted people don't feel either.
- far33d 19y ago
  I try not to feel guilt about it. Rich white folks get what they want through privilege. Going to a top notch college is a great equalizer for everyone else who wasn't lucky enough to be born to the right parents - if you can get there.

imgabe 19y ago

Here's some interesting numbers. Let's say you go to a college for four years and it costs $25,000/year, $100,000 total. To pay for it, you take out some college loans at 7% interest that have to paid back in 10 years. So, your loan payment is $1161.08/month. In total you'll pay $139,329 by the time the loan is paid off. So, you earn 1.2 million more over your life time than the non-college grad, but after the cost of college you're only ahead by about $1,060,000. I'm supposing here that by "over your lifetime" means until you retire, that is say from age 22 to age 65. Now, suppose you don't go to college but instead you start working at 18. You apply yourself to your job, learn what you can on your own time, and by age 22 you've got four years experience and you've been promoted the point that you can sock away $1161.08 per month in savings. Say you do this for 10 years and keep the money in a conservative mutual fund that earns an average return of 7% per year. After the 10 years are over you've got $200,965 in savings. At this point, you stop investing. Even with no additional money, by the time you're 65 (33 years later) you'll have $2,011,064.27 or roughly $1 million more than the guy who invested his money in college. Of course these are just some made up numbers. A lot of people who aren't motivated to go to college are probably also not motivated to save that much money and live that frugally. If college costs you less than $25,000 per year it might be worth it, or you might go into a profession that allows you to earn way more than $1.2 million more than the average high school grad. On the other hand, lots of colleges cost a good deal more than $25k/year. Also, the high school grad might invest his money more aggressively and earn more than 7% interest. It would be interesting to see where the crossover point is in terms of college cost, loan interest rate, investment interest rate, and so on. The point remains that a return of 1.2 million over 43 years on a $100,000 investment is pretty crappy (around 5.8% compounded monthly, slightly better than an online savings account)