As the cost of college rises, students want to know whether higher education is worth it, and more specifically, whether a degree from their institution is worth it in the long run.
A new study by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce looks at what schools – and which types of schools – lead to the highest earnings down the line, based on data for 4,500 schools from the expanded College Scorecard.
“This is in the end a question that cuts across two worlds,” said Dr. Anthony P. Carnevale, lead author of the study and director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. “One is the economy – employers, jobs, careers – and the other is education. And those two worlds, there aren’t many who live in both.”
The report – titled “A First Try at ROI: Ranking 4,500 Colleges” – is the first to do an institution-by-institution analysis of median return on investment using the latest numbers from the U.S. Department of Education. It found that college is worth the money, but the kind of institution impacts return on investment.
In the short term, 10 years after enrollment, colleges that provide associate degrees and certificates offered high returns, as did public colleges. But in the long term, 40 years after enrollment, four-year schools focused on bachelor’s degrees were a better investment. And private nonprofit colleges outdid public institutions, even though they required more student loan debt.
These particular trends didn’t surprise Carnevale. Private colleges attract more privileged students, and they spend more on each student, so their graduates do well in the long run, he said, even if they have more student loans to pay off at first.
But the type of institution matters less than students might think, he said. The report’s authors expected elite universities to yield the better results, but the best schools for long-term returns varied. For example, occupational schools like Maine Maritime Academy, the United States Merchant Marine Academy, St. Louis College of Pharmacy and Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences were among the top ten investments 40 years down the line.
