Check the “Payback” Before Choosing An Expensive College
The debate over public versus private college is an ongoing one, but one that becomes particularly important during difficult economic times. Every student (and often their parents, who may be footing the bill) wants to know if paying a lot more for your education is actually worth it. Does a big-name, Ivy League degree really give you more value than a much cheaper degree from your local state college?
Smart Money did an interesting exercise recently by calculating the “payback” of a college education using measures including the early and mid-career salaries, tuition and fees. You might not be that surprised to learn that it was all public colleges that made the list of those institutions that give students the “biggest payback” on their college investment.
Of course, there are other factors that should be included in a decision over which college to go to - for example, student-teacher ratios or various quality factors - but in a pure financial comparison, these colleges give the best value for money in terms of the salary you’re likely to earn compared to the tuition fees - a calculation worth considering when you’re choosing a college:
- University of Georgia
- Texas A&M
- University of Texas, Austin
- Georgia Tech
- University of Washington
This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 at 4:27 am and is filed under College and Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
