The first doubts might occur with the letter announcing a financial aid package, along with the balance a student (and parents) will have to pay themselves.
For others, the "is college really worth it?" question arises in the face of today's staggering student debt statistics. Or perhaps the moment of truth comes somewhere between a first paycheck and the initial student loan notice.
According to a Student Loan Hero report updated in May 2018 and using stats from Mark Kantrowitz with Private Student Loans Guru, the average student loan debt for 2017 graduates was $39,400, up six percent from the previous year. The Federal Reserve reported that Americans owe more than $1.49 trillion in student loan debt. Forbes added another frightening statistic: "Black students end up with nearly twice the debt burden of white students four years after graduation."
Forty-four percent of the people between 21 and 40 with student loan debt surveyed by Consumer Reports in 2016 said they "cut back on day-to-day living expenses" due to the debt and 45 percent said, for them, college was not worth the cost.
But there are still pretty strong arguments for the other side. The overwhelming research shows that individuals - and the nation's college graduate base on the whole - benefit substantially from having a college degree. And that's not just the opinion of past generations holding on to outdated notions of the value of hard work and higher education.
Sources from the Pew Research Center to Kiplinger have crunched the numbers and concluded that, long term, a college degree still pays off for students starting school or graduating in the period between 2018 and 2023:
Reduced unemployment for those who earn bachelor's degrees
"Economies rise and fall, but whatever the financial climate, both national and international businesses need educated employees," noted Colorado State University's Global Campus.
Data for 2017 from the Bureau of Labor Statistics confirms this outlook: for that year, people ages 25 and older with less than a high school diploma had an unemployment rate of 6.5%, compared with 4.6% for those who had graduated high school and a mere 2.5% for those with a bachelor's degree.
African Americans had higher levels of unemployment in all categories, but experienced the most significant drop in unemployment with a college degree. That group's unemployment level was 7.8% with a high school diploma and dropped almost four points, to 4.0% unemployment, with a college degree.
Men started with lower rates of unemployment among those with high school diplomas and those with college degrees, going from 4.6% to 2.5%, while women went from 4.9% to 2.7%.
Increased earning potential
Cold, hard stats also indicate that people with degrees earn more money. According to BLS figures on earnings by educational attainment, median weekly earnings for those with less than a high school diploma was $520 in 2017. Those figures increased to $712 for those with a high school diploma and more than doubled for college graduates, who had a median weekly earning of $1,173.
A 2014 report by the Pew Research Center titled "The Rising Cost of Not Going to College" showed the earning gap between those with and without a college degree at its widest in 50 years. "On virtually every measure of economic well-being and career attainment - from personal earnings to job satisfaction to the share employed full time - young college graduates are outperforming their peers with less education. And when today's young adults are compared with previous generations, the disparity in economic outcomes between college graduates and those with a high school diploma or less formal schooling has never been greater in the modern era."
There are ways to get more bang for the college buck
The lifelong benefits of a college education don't have to cost so much. In its picks for "10 Best Values in U.S. Colleges, 2018," Kiplinger reported College Board figures for the 2017-18 academic year, when the average sticker price at private non-profit colleges, including tuition, fees and room and board, rose 3.5 percent to $46,950. "At the same time, average student loan debts for those who borrow has increased 29 percent, while the average earnings of recent college graduates - after adjusting for inflation - has remained relatively flat."
To overcome the increase in cost, Kiplinger recommended evaluating schools based on which ones deliver quality education at an affordable price. Its own picks for top value colleges were based on how competitive admissions are, how efficiently a college gets students to their degree, how affordable the school's sticker price is, which schools have generous financial aid for students who qualify and which deliver low student debt at graduation. "Private colleges, which typically have more magnanimous financial aid awards and stronger four-year graduation rates than their public counterparts, dominate the top of our combined list."
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