In Ireland my college cost €3000 per year and most got it for free through government grants.

I lived with my parents and went to the local college because I didn’t have big ambitions.

The course gave everyone work placement with most people keeping the job after the course, starting at €28,000 - €35,000 salary on average.

My following job 4 years later paid €70,000 and then 2 years later €80,000.

At age 28 I am €35,000 above the median Salary of the country which is around €44,000.

The ROI has been massive on that €12,000 spent on college.

Grinds my gears to see every discussion of college ROI look at tuition and majors, but always the "Average" or "typical" student, NEVER segmented by, e.g. socioeconomic background.

If you can afford college, it is absolutely worth it to go to college. For a variety of reasons, ROI not top of the list.

If it may be hard for you to afford college, then it's a better question to ask.

1. Doing something practical ahead of college is always in order.

2. As someone trying to finish the PhD, there is zero ROI, due to closeness to retirement. If genuine intellectual curiosity were not the driver, it would truly be a waste of time.

The lifetime ROI of college is only 13%?

https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2025/04/is-col...

Doesn't that mean over the working life of the person (40 years), they spend (1-0.13) * 40 = 34.8yrs paying for the cost of college from their additional earnings?

I think my college was paid for with additional earnings inside of 5 years.

ROI (as a %) at 5 years out is going to be much higher than Lifetime ROI. A non-graduate will be able to make up most of the gap they start with.

I think it’s the difference between going and not going.

So if you make 100 without college, you’d have made 113 with it.

And I don’t know if loan repayments are factored in.

It could be that college educated individuals wind up with 13% more wealth than similarly situated non-degreed individuals

there's something disturbing about learning just being reduced to an ROI calculation. Is there no non-monetary value in the knowledge and skills? If it doesn't make us money it's not worth it?

Knowledge and skills have great value! Yes, we should all pursue them with enthusiasm, even for their own sake!

But I'd argue that colleges are purporting to sell 'knowledge and skills' -- at a markup somewhere between hilarious and absurd. Knowledge and skills are absolutely free for the taking now. Academia has zero claim to them.

There are more insightful lectures on YouTube in ANY subject area than you'll hear in 99% of college classrooms. Libraries full of books anyone can read on any subject. And for someone who wants those ideas organized into a course of study, you can just download a syllabus for a college class, even buy all the textbooks, and pay a couple thousand a year, compared to the $20,000+ the average college tries to charge. For a customized and up-to-date syllabus, ask an AI to update an old one with the latest concepts and discoveries.

So why should they charge us so much? The answer is that they are not actually selling knowledge or skills. They're just gatekeeping access to be elite, and they can't make it truly affordable because then it would lose even more of its original value. Even now, just "a college degree" barely even grants any elite status, only the Ivys and certain respected schools in niches (e.g. UCLA for film school) confer any status. For everyone else, it may get your foot in a door somewhere, serving basically just as a vague proof that you have enough perseverance to complete one annoying, long-term slog, but that door is not a door that guarantees you any prosperity anyway.

At the ridiculous cost of attendance at a traditional university a love for learning is not a good value proposition. Someone who loves learning would be better served doing self led study with occasional tutoring. Costs will be much lower and the education far more specialized. Of course I wouldn’t want a medical professional to diagnose my hypothetical cancer with a trade school education either. As with a great many things, YMMV.

100% this. Many non experimental topics can be self taught with the help of paid tutors -- I'm sure university tutors are happy to give you tutorials if you pay them cash.

Plus all colleges have very stringent prerequisites rules and tons of BS classes one has to take. Some colleges have independent studies, which are much better, but you still have to go through the prerequisites gate and other annoyances, plus it's still expensive.

>> Is there no non-monetary value in the knowledge and skills? If it doesn't make us money it's not worth it?

Not saying college isnt worth it, but knowledge and skills can be much more easily obtained via MOOCs, digital learning platforms, reading, etc. I know not everyone has the focus to do so, but that is usually because they do not look at the sheer cost of the alternative. A good way to frame the decision is -- "if you cannot learn some of this via MOOCs/Udemy/Udacity/Coursera, are you willing to pay $80k for someone to help you focus on doing it?"

Separate from this is experience, relationships, teamworks, practicals/labs, etc which I think college is much better at than MOOCs/Udemy/Udacity/Coursera.

I honestly wish I could have done a year or two of MOOCs/Udemy/Udacity/Coursera inbetween college so I could focus even more on experience, relationships, teamworks, practicals/labs when actually in college.

With open courseware and other tools, dedicated individuals have even less motivation to go through a college just for knowledge. And you don't have to take any class you are not interested in. Of course this doesn't apply to topics that require a lot of equipments.

College is largely for certification and connections IMO. Both are basically just financial concerns.

Is there no non-monetary value in the other things that someone might be doing between the ages of 18 and 22, which may also involve learning?

This. I'm old, but to me even ignoring the learning a huge part was getting to start over with a new friend group with way healthier dynamics than high school. Changed my understanding of friendship.

Long story short, given that a academic loans are just as undismissable as a criminal judgement, school is a scam.

And since having a degree guaranteees absolutely nothing, doubly so.

There is truth to what you say - but it's not absolute.

So very many students I knew when at University were surviving entirely off loans/debt, instead of having a job. That's one of the easiest ways for people to rack up 5-6 figures of "student" debt... even though a non-trivial amount was spent on Chipotle and Blaze Pizza... along with expensive apartments or dorms (all expenses the individual would incur regardless if they were a student or not).

Many people believe University (and therefore a degree) is an automatic door to a high paying job - yet fail to realize what your field of study is matters a lot. We almost shouldn't even offer student loans for anything outside of STEM, but even within STEM your job prospects are largely up to the individual.

University largely doesn't teach you how to do a job... it teaches you how to think. You spend a lot of time in your field of study thinking deeply about issues, ideas, past works, etc. None of which prepares you for your first day in the office.

University (and the college experience in general) is meaningful and powerful. I recommend it - but not with debt. Get a full-time job, and work your way through your degree program. It will take much longer to get your degree, but you will be a much more complete adult at the end, filled with equal parts life-experience and domain knowledge.

I think only about half of students take out loans, so that's only part of the consideration.

"College Is Still Worth It Even with Higher Out-of-Pocket Costs"

You could at least try to engage with what the article actually says.

For a large number of adults:

They’ll never have lower expenses and a greater tolerance for not having money than at ages 18-22.

They’ll never be in closer contact with such large numbers of people their age with the same level of freedom.

I get not spending insane money to go to college but 4 years at an in-state school with reasonable tuition can be a very fun time that you really only get the chance to do once.

I wouldn’t go into debt $100k to do it, but $30k-50k doesn’t seem like an outrageous number for how much fun it can be.

4 years of fun for $50k plus living expenses. You can have fun for 4 years for just the living expenses and save the 50k. The only reason college makes more sense is because your parents are covering the living expenses. Something they probably won't be willing to do if the premise is just having fun.

There are no guarantees in anything. It's a moot point. As the article makes clear, you can still expect to earn more on average with a degree.

Aside: For everyone who thinks they can recognize AI images. Did you notice this one jump out at you?

Feels like we're one year away from totally undetectable AI images, and just after that for video.

The only thing that jumped out at me - what thought process leads to thinking this image improves this article / page?

It's easy to tell the article image is AI, easiest clue is guy's ear, the wire goes nowhere. But this is a placeholder image that has no purpose and it's there just because there has to be an image. No one pays attention.

How about the bone/wire in her hand?

Nah, those are just the newest version of the LobePods

i didnt even look at the image

There's some hacks around College debt such as going to Berea College, federal work colleges, or Deep Springs College. Also Community College to a local college (ensure that your credits will transfer 100%) is a cheaper option. I've been fortunate enough to get jobs without a degree.

I've also attended community college, a prestigious college (Tulane) and Berea College. Their courses are essentially the same, but different costs. People are a little smarter, so the standard for homework is a bit higher at Tulane. Honestly it's not worth to get debt for a brand name that most employers don't care about these days.

I don't think it's a hack at all. It's how higher education should work.

While our present system is what it is, and educates a lot of people, the same can be said for our health care system. But both are these opaque public-private enterprises that cost twice or more as in other civilized countries, for no reason that anybody can discern.

I've long believed that our best bet towards reforming higher education is to support and strengthen the public institutions that are doing a lot of good for a lot of people.

What if I don't care about the economic benefits? What if I just really want to learn something?

Social scene in college is pretty hard to beat

>> Including software development, probably, for Gen Alpha, since nobody wants to hire juniors anymore, for rational reasons.

This point is the best so far -- from my standpoint in technology, the market for entry-level has almost completely disappeared. When speaking with my kids, I dont know how I could propose over-leveraging for college any longer in any field where there isnt forced scarcity or licenses or some other protection mechanism for entry-level workers looking to go up the ladder.

tldr: "College Is Still Worth It Even with Higher Out-of-Pocket Costs", however the bottom quarter of college students see little premium over a high school degree. Until 1995 the median high school only educated person earned more than the bottom 25% of college graduates.

One of my Mom's friends told me back then companies were desperate to hire anyone with a college degree.

Also, gives a breakdown per field. It really tells you something when a fine arts degree has a better return then education. (Edit: missed this: "Returns are especially low for education majors, though it should be noted that annual wages for this group typically reflect teacher salaries for a nine-month school year.")