Here we simply apply the ROI formula:
ROI = Return / (Direct Costs + Indirect Costs)

In this case:
-What College Costs (Direct Costs) ($436,674 for Private, $213,113 for In-State)
-What Opportunity is forgone (Indirect Costs) (1,595,698 for a minimum wage employee in California)
-What the benefit is (return) ($1,056,611 for being a librarian instead of a teacher’s aid)

ROI = $1,056,611 / (426,674 + 1,595,698)

ROI = $1,056,611 / (2,022,372)

ROI= .52

In the above example, the ROI is way below 1, coming in at .52. This would suggest the investment is extremely poor, as for every dollar invested, only 52 cents is returned. In this example it would be better to forgo college and instead work minimum wage for 6 years and then step into a teachers aid role, assuming a teachers aid and librarian give you similar job satisfaction.

Being the ‘but’ Exception:

This gets to the point where most students will say, “but.. but.. but..”. “But I have more down than this”, or “But I’m better than average and will graduate in 4 or 5 years”, or “but I got a scholarship for $5,000 a year”, or even “But I’m a Richey”. For every one of you, there’s also the person that would have to say “I have less down than this”, and “I’m worse than average and won’t graduate at all”. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but according to the National Center for Educational Statistics, only 32% of graduates at an open-admission college graduate in 6 years, while 88% of those at a highly competitive college graduate in 6 years.

However, this is where I urge students to do the math for themselves. If you are at an in-state school, even straight A students sometimes take 5 years because they can’t get into the classes they need to graduate. Scholarship amounts can be deducted from the “direct cost” figure, but keep in mind they are often only for 4 years. Any income can be made while in school, such as through student work can be subtracted from the opportunity cost figure. Figure out to the best of your ability what your numbers are, and determine if the investment is right for you.

 

 

OK, get to the point: so is college a ripoff? Yes or No:

While we all want the answers handed to us, this is a case where no one can tell you the answer, but I can tell you precisely how to find the answer for your unique case. No guessing necessary:

If you are confident in what you want to spend your life doing, and it requires a college degree: Get it (but maybe use what you learned here to consider what school you go to and what you do while your there?). If you are going to college wholly or partially because of the earning power, calculate the ROI for your potential degree and job types. If you get a strong positive, then college is right for you. If you get a negative, look into what variables you can legitimately change- such as switching to a cheaper college or a better field of study. If that doesn’t work out in your favor, then you know that college isn’t right for you.

When I advise individuals and teams on business plans, I always stress the importance of a business plan. While some people will downplay its importance, I assure any business startup that their business plan is of the utmost importance. I don’t care about the actual output, format, or anything similar, but virtually every person who I have ever worked with on a business plan gets to the point where they say, “The math doesn’t work”. They realize that the business they designed doesn’t play out- the returns don’t justify the investments, and the business model doesn’t work.

It is the next step that is the most important part of the business planning process to me: Once you see it doesn’t work, you can see why it doesn’t work, and change your plan accordingly. It doesn’t mean you give up on a business startup, it means you rework it. Some businesses decide that instead of having a specific restaurant location, they could have a mobile food truck. Others realize that they can’t make the product cheap enough to sell through a wholesaler, but if they generate a direct-sales model, they can be profitable.

This is what those seeking college need to do. Once they calculate out the results of their educational plan, many will discover the return doesn’t justify the investment. In those cases, it is not simply a “don’t go to college”, but rather it is, “Let’s play with the inputs and outputs a bit”.

My wife went to a local regional college for 2 years, the Middletown branch of Miami University, before finishing her last two years at the Oxford Branch. This saved her considerable amounts of money. Other students choose to go to a 2 year school before they go to a 4 year school. Others use it as motivation to seek out more scholarships, or to choose a slightly less prestigious college who offers them drastically more money. There are a large number of variables in the equation which can be tweaked.

Individuals can lower their direct cost, lower their opportunity costs, or increase their return to change the equation in colleges’ favor. Students can lower the direct cost through various ways including choosing cheaper programs, finishing sooner, and getting scholarships. Students can lower opportunity costs by working full time or part time while in school to produce the same or similar income as if they were not working, and by finishing school sooner. Students can increase their return by choosing careers prospects which are higher paying. By manipulating these three factors, college can make a lot of sense.

Another Look at “No Brainer” degrees:

The example was assuming minimum wage and a liberal arts major choosing to become a librarian. Other careers, such as medicine and engineering are often viewed as “No Brainers”. Imagine you are trying to decide between going to private school to become an automotive engineer and becoming a mechanic? The average salary for an auto mechanic is $40,720 and can often be learned in trade school even before another student would go to college, while an automotive engineer may make $73,721 according to payscale.com. You may start out at only about $23,000 straight out of highschool as a technician, but with your $138,000 head start and $437,000 less in direct costs, it is actually a closer calculation than you might guess. Try it out!

To give you a hint, the 1.1 million in extra earning power may be offset by the $437k in direct costs and $1.42 million in future value derived from saving 80% of your post-tax income over the first 6 years. As long as the mechanic could save about 45% of their income over those first 6 years and invest it into 7% return, the two options are about even.

Now getting the average mechanic to pocket 45% of their income over the first 6 years of their career might seem like its as challenging as convincing your 4 year old to go to bed, but still its fairly astounding when you really think about it. Even graduating college in 4 years happens less than 20% of the time. Therefore If your a parent and your kid wants to become a mechanic, maybe letting them stay at home for 6 years dumping their cash into Roth IRA isn’t a bad parenting move.

 

 

 

Sources:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/noodleeducation/2015/05/28/more-than-half-of-college-faculty-are-adjuncts-should-you-care/#5c99dac61600

https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/franklin-adjunct-professor-salary-SRCH_IL.0,8_IC1145714_KO9,26.htm

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=37

http://www.collegedata.com/cs/content/content_payarticle_tmpl.jhtml?articleId=10064

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/education/most-college-students-dont-earn-degree-in-4-years-study-finds.html

https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/10/07/student-loan-expectations-myth-vs-reality

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=40

http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Automotive_Engineer/Salary

http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Librarian/Salary

Indirect Costs- What is the costs of the forgone opportunities that could have been taken advantage of with this time and money?

I was fortunate to complete some of my schooling with not only a full scholarship, but an extra Graduate Assistantship that paid me very well for my time. In this case, I didn’t have a direct degree “Cost” and in fact made more money in my Assistantship than I needed for room, board, and similar. In other words, I was actually making money while going to school. While this sounds like a dream for many students, there is something many of them forget: The indirect costs.

I spent 6 years in total in school. What else could I have been doing with those 6 years? What else could YOU be doing with your 4-8 years? I could have gotten a job somewhere else, I could have done an apprenticeship, or gone to tech school for 2 years and worked for 4. There’s a plethora of things I could have done. I could have even traveled the country or the world!

Here’s a place where I know I’m an exception. I managed to minimize indirect costs by running my own company WHILE going to school. In other words, while other students were getting loans, I was getting paid AND ran a company that was bringing in more money in addition to what was happening at school. But that’s not what most student’s do- most students look at it as 4-8 years of dedicated studying and no working, except maybe a $8 an hour school job or time on the summers.

The indirect cost is a calculation of what else you would have been able to do instead of spending the time in school. It should be salary as well as interest on that salary. If for example, instead of going to school you could stay at home for 6 years rent free and board free, and you saved 95% of a minimum wage salary in California (which is $10.50 an hour), choosing this path would net you $124,488 or so. Depending on your situation, taxes could vary, but worst case scenario should put you around $99,590.

This may not sound like a huge sum, but assuming your 24 when you’re done accumulating it, you have a lot of life left. Assuming a 7% annual return, that could turn into well over 1.5 million dollars at retirement. Yes, working minimum wage and sacking 95% of your salary for 6 years could cover your entire retirement basis for life and make you a card-carrying millionaire… and this is assuming no raises, and literally just getting minimum wage for a 40-hour a week job! Take a 50 hour a week job or get paid more, and the game changes quite a bit.

It does take work and focus to sack away this much for 6 years- just like a college degree does. Many people have trouble saving even 1% of their income. However, looking at it as a 6 year “preparation for your future” time period would equal a similar- or greater- benefit than spending 6 years in college.

The opportunity cost, or indirect costs, don’t have to be limited to just the salary. It could also be side jobs (say you are working TWO jobs), personal projects, or life experiences. The opportunity cost is simply whatever else you would be doing with the time and money you used for college.

One other opportunity cost is what you would be doing with any money you had for college. If for example, your parents had saved $20,000 to help pay for your college, that could be put towards retirement, used to start a business, or used in another way to get you career or future rolling. If you just put it into retirement, it is is another $480k you would have at retirement age, bringing your balance to over 2 million dollars- not including a penny you’d make after the age of 24!

If you are struggling to “estimate” the numbers, break each one down using the the 3 point, also known as PERT method of estimating:

In project management, when things are uncertain, we often use the PERT method. Here we look at:
A: The Worst Case Scenario
B: The Most Likely Scenario
C: The Best Case Scenario

Then we take the following calculation: (4*B + A + C) / 6

So if the worst case scenario is $330,000, and the Most likely scenario is $280,000, but the best case scenario is $80,000, the PERT approach would give you:
(4*(280,000) + (330,000) + (80,000))/6 or (1,530,000)/6 which is $255,000 for  the estimate.

The tool we use to evaluate the decision to go to college is called ROI, or Return on Investment.

All students at this point need to do some basic math. What is the ROI of going to college? And does it make sense?

ROI is fairly basic- it is simply “Is what I get from something, worth what I put into it plus the lost opportunity cost”. Many people fail to consider the “lost opportunity cost”. For example, does it make sense to drive across town to save 1 cent per gallon on gas. Typically no- While you gain 18 cents in an 18 gallon tank, you lose 60 cents in gas used driving plus 15 minutes of your life that could be used doing other things.

Therefore when going to college you have these three factors:

-What College Costs (Direct Costs)
-What Opportunity is forgone (Indirect Costs)
-What the benefit is (return)

ROI = Return / (Direct Costs + Indirect Costs)

An “ROI” of 1 means that there is no gain from the investment. Some people like to calculate risk premium as part of the ROI calculation, but I find risk premiums too arbitrary and they are weighted too heavily for how arbitrary they are. If I have an ROI of 1, or no gain, but I have a risk of actually achieving the stated return, it does not seem worthwhile to partake.

An ROI below 1 means that there is actually loss from the investment. In these cases, taking the investment actually loses money. Why would someone ever take an investment that loses money? If that’s the case, it isn’t an “investment at all”. The only time to take an opportunity with a negative ROI, or an ROI below 1, is if its to pursue your dreams and goals.

An ROI above 1 means there is a positive gain from the investment. In these cases, the investment does have a positive return, and therefore should be pursued. The one exception is that if there is another opportunity with a higher ROI, in which case the better opportunity should be pursued.

Lets discuss some of the components of this calculation:

Return- What is the real return of your investment? This can be quite tricky. You see, where can you get data you trust?

Many students state they are expecting large salaries because their school program told them that graduates in a certain field have a certain salary. However, schools intend to maximize the amount of money they make. They spend money marketing their programs to get students. They are not an unbiased third party! I’ve even sat on boards at schools promising salaries that make me scoff- knowing all too well that the stated salary is not realistic. Salaries for different fields vary by location, and job types, not by degree held. A project manager in Silicon Valley may make $125,000- But I personally know a college-degree-holding project manager with 10 years of experience that’s making about $45,000 in Cincinnati Ohio.

So what return can you expect? First off all, going to college for a specific “degree” is not why you are there. There are people who have engineering degrees but decide they want to teach highschool, and people with education degrees that use it to be a recruiter. You are going to college for a career, and therefore you should be looking at salaries for your careers of interest for this exercise. Ultimately you should be choosing the majors that put you in the best position for your career interests, and therefore keep the end in mind.

When looking for the return for a specific job, you can ask people. Many won’t disclose, and for those who do, assume everyone will overstate their salary. Also take into consideration their age, as someone in the field for 30 years likely makes a lot more than someone in the field for months.

When someone asks how much I make I scoff. Not only is that a rude question, but would anyone expect anyone else to answer that honestly? That’s something people always seem to over state. Glassdoor.com is actually helpful, but they are just estimates. People tend to say, “look I can make up to $62,000” in that job forgetting the fact that students right out of college are at the low end of that “32,000-62,000” range. I’ve worked with a few college students who actually go years unemployed because they can’t find a job that “pays what I’m worth”. Newsflash: If you can’t find a job that pays what you are worth, you aren’t worth as much as you think you are.

Is it realistic for a college graduate to get paid in the 30s? Why yes, I’d say that isn’t just realistic, but more common than most would like to admit. Despite the fact that many college graduates insist they want $75,000 a year out of school, In fact I find college students with salaries in the 20’s more than I find college graduates with salaries in the 50s or more. Sure it depends on location and specific career fields, but remember, “Everyone thinks they deserve to be at the top of the salary range”.

You can also ask companies what the salary is for a specific job, and look at job postings. You may find enough examples that state it in the listings or will tell you on the phone to create a good expected return, but remember to be realistic. Don’t go look at “SR ENGINEER LEVEL V” and think, “That’s what I’m going to do when I graduate”. Presume you’re going to be “JR ENGINEER LEVEL 0” instead- you’ll be lucky to get an engineering job at all.

To put this into perspective for our ROI, Let’s say for example, you finished in the middle of your class, and you’re a pretty average person. You decide you should go to college so you can get a good job, and you decide that you’ll get a History degree, because history interests you. Like many liberal arts degrees, while they like to think of themselves as someone who can “do anything”, it can equally be said they become the “Jack of all Trades, Master of None”. So you use your newfound degree to become a Librarian.

Your librarian salary isn’t too bad, and you sport $38,000 out of school and eventually rise to 48,727. Late in your career you can expect to rise up to about $59,000. Certainly not a bad job, and it sounds good for many students.

The actual return though doesn’t include the fraction you’d be making at the same time with the job you would have gotten without a degree. In this case we look at your alternative career, a Teachers Aid. Starting at about $9 an hour, you eventually rise to $11 an hour and ultimately end up at $13 an hour. Just like as a librarian, you choose to work through summers to assure you have consistent income.

In this case we’ll use the 3 point estimating method to come up with your salary baseline for both careers:
Librarian: $48,651
Teacher’s Aid: $22,880

The “Return” would be the new salary minus the alternative salary times career length, or:

(COLLEGE SALARY – NON-COLLEGE SALARY)*CAREER LENGTH

It would be very reasonable to consider investment returns from savings strategies here for the Librarian (For example, the returns on the income), but since most people tend to be poor savers either way, for this example we are not.

COLLEGE SALARY – NON-COLLEGE SALARY is also known as “annual lift”

$48,651-$22,880 = $25,771 annual lift

Annual lift * CAREER LENGTH = Return

$25,771 * 41 working years = $1,056,611

The Librarian makes just over 1 million dollars more than the Teacher’s Aid over a 41 year career.

Direct Costs- What is the actual cost of the college degree you are approaching?

The direct costs seem like an easy calculation, but it gets tricky quick, because you not only have to calculate the actual money spent, but all ancillary money spent (room, board, etc.) and the interest amount paid back.

Let’s take for example, the statistics published by CollegeData.com. The actual costs someone has in college includes the actual tuition, books, your room, your food, as well as clothes, toiletries, room items, and entertainment expenses. Most students may be surprised at how much peer pressure there is to spend month on entertainment expenses in school, but savvy students can pass on dinner, concerts, bowling, and beers. CollegeData states that the average tuition and fees cost is $33,480 at private colleges, and $9,650 at in-state colleges (Out of state-state colleges come in at $24,930). Room and board on the other hand comes in at $10,440 for in state colleges up to $11,890 for private schools. Books and school supplies come in at around $1240 for both public and private colleges, plus $2720-3270 for transportation, clothing, personal items, etc. This is the average, which means there are a lot of people above this. It is not a worst-case scenario. This puts the direct cost right around $49,330 a year for private colleges and as cheap as $24,600 for in-state schools.

So if we take this number and multiply it by 4, that will get us a good cost, right?

Not quite. There’s still two pieces missing. First off, despite it being called a “4 year degree”, a bachelors degree typically takes longer. According to the New York Times, only 19 percent of full time students finish that “4 year degree” in 4 years at public universities. What this equates to is an expected 6 year time frame not for a masters degree and bachelors degree, but just a normal bachelors degree.

Over 6 years, this totals $295,980 for Private schools and $147,600 for in-state schools.

Here we still aren’t quite done yet, because a whole lot of students get student loans. Any money paid out of pocket by students or parents needs to be considered as part of the “indirect costs” or “opportunity costs”. Any money not spent directly would come from loans, and therefore the interest paid on the loan is also part of the direct costs. Imagine the parents saved $20,000 to put towards a theoretical student’s loan. That would still mean $20,000 was part of the direct cost, but we only count the interest expense- the amount you have to pay for the loan- for the remaining amount (275,980 or $127,600 respectively)

For this part of the calculation, most students would look at the federal student loan rate of 4.45% for direct unsubsidized or subsidized loans. For this example we’ll assume this 4.45% rate AND subsidized loans, which is “best case scenario”. Many students end up having to get Direct PLUS loans or private loans because they don’t qualify for 100% of their costs through the direct loan programs. Students should calculate what they are really expected to pay, and not just settle for the “best case scenario”, because many, if not most, students have to take higher interest loans.

According the US News, it takes an average of 21 years to pay off a student’s loans. Putting this into perspective, The $275,980 after the parents savings for Private school, over 21 years, equates to $1657 a month for half of a student’s expected working life. This includes the 141,693.73 of interest, making the direct cost $437,674. For the in-state schools, this total drops to only $213,113. Many students opt for spring break trips and other activities. These types of activities need to be added on to the direct costs, including interest (credit card or student loan) if applicable. Forbes magazine reports that 30.6% of students spend loan money on spring break trips, with others use loan money for alcohol, clothes, and even drugs. While I certainly would never advocate the use of loan money for any of these items, anyone choosing to do so needs to include this information – and the interest accumulated from it- into their calculation.

A growing talk track today is about how “college is a waste of money”. Often these are preached by some individual who dropped out of school and went on to become an incredibly successful individual. The problem however is that the debate is slightly more complex than this.

College is a Great investment for many, and it is an Awful investment for many. It simply is not all good or all bad. College is not a final goal. It may be an intermediary step to get you to your final goal, but it in itself is a midstream activity. Way too many students walk into college thinking the degree is their goal, but a degree is just a piece of paper. It really isn’t that “hard” to get a degree- yes it takes a lot of work, but virtually anyone willing to put forth the work can get a degree from SOMEWHERE in SOMETHING. Our society often misleads our students telling them you need a “Degree” to get a good job, but this concept is laughable. There are extremely high numbers of college graduates who make a whole lot less than many high-school diploma-led careers. Blindly going forth with an investment, be it in stocks, bonds, a business, or your education is silly- it’s like playing the lottery, throwing money into a number and crossing your fingers that it’ll pay off. Just like most business startups without a plan, if you go to college with no plan, odds are your going to fail and you won’t reep the reward from your investment.

If the “degree” is just a piece of paper, the question any potential student really needs to ask is “why” would they go to college. What would it do for them?

This is where we get into the “why” you should go. I wouldn’t teach college students if I didn’t believe in the institution of college. That does not mean I think it makes sense for everyone, or even most people. College is by its very nature a decision to give up 4 or more years of your earning potential to instead, for many students, borrow from your future earnings to dedicate yourself to schooling. It only makes sense to pursue if there is a positive Return on Investment. I wouldn’t put money in a treasury bond if the government said they were going to keep it all and not give me anything back for it, would you? Instead the treasury tells you what return you will get for that treasury bond purchase, and you decide if it’s a worthwhile investment for the amount of risk you get.

Some benefits end up being fairly easy. If for example, your absolute dream is to be a veterinarian, you’re going to need a specific degree set. Typically as an undergrad you may do zoology, biology, or anatomy, and then a graduate degree in veterinary medicine. However, it is not always quite that simple. Is this career truly your dream? Have you spent time with vets to make sure it is what you want to do for the rest of your life?  Validate that it truly is your dream, as there are other similar careers you might prefer, such as veterinary technician or Horse Trainer. These don’t have the same educational requirements and are often more affordable to attain- but more importantly, they may be careers you enjoy more!

Some other passions, such as “art” may actually be better served by investing several years as an apprentice. In this role, you can learn first hand from an expert, and help create your actual work. By the time 4 years rolls around, you aren’t “starting” your career with a massive load of debt, instead you’re in the meat of it, all without 4 years of debt on your hands to pay back.

But if your true passion is in a career in which a specific degree is necessary, which isn’t true for most students per the National Center for Educational Statics, than you know you should go to college. Even if it doesn’t pay off financially, you are realizing your dreams and goals and that is your true goal in life, is it not?

When I look at degree statistics however- and talk to students who state things like “I’m not here to learn, I’m just here because I need a degree to find a job” (true statement from a student), I realize that many students are just going to college because they “should”. They get this idea from someone in their life, be it a teacher, a parent, or the social collective. These are the individuals I really worry about, and the ones which would benefit from figuring out if college is right for them. Even for those who become “engineers” or “doctors” for the supposed great pay need to take a moment to figure out what they are getting themselves into, to make sure it is worthwhile.

While most conversations about colleges are geared towards the students education, less attention is paid to the other side of the coin: To the professors who teach the courses and generate research.

In fact, while my ultimate plan was to be a tenured PhD Entrepreneurship faculty, while I was doing an environmental scan for the industry (as every entrepreneur should), I determined the climate was awful for this path. Tenured jobs are in a huge decline both due to social pressures and collegiate cut backs. Socially, there’s been a huge push back against tenured professors, with the argument that professors should only retain their jobs if they remain quality teachers. Colleges are cutting back permanent professors with the inclusion of adjuncts, due to their much cheaper nature. Forbes reports over half of faculty are now adjuncts. Colleges are in the “business” of maximizing revenues while minimizing costs (but don’t call that profit because most are after all, “non-profits”! Unfortunately,  that term doesn’t mean what most people think it means).

On top of these two factors, college attendance is projected to decline due to the high costs and reduced benefit brought about from the number of people completing degrees in college. After all, basic economics- High supply, static demand, equals decreased price, known in this case as “salary”. Therefore the benefits of a degree are in decline. If the cost is high and the benefit is low then basic economics suggests demand, in this case for a degree, will decline. What makes things tricky is that many colleges grew and new universities sprouted up to meet the influx of demand that was en route through the late 90s and into the great recession of 2008. There is frankly too many schools and too many professors for the shrinking enrollment.

Does this sound like an industry for a career future you are interested in? probably not, which is exacerbating the death of the college professor. You see, when many of the smartest potential professors determine it’s not a good career field, and that is coupled with cost pressures driving the pay of adjunct professors to disturbing levels, our education system is going to lose the one thing that makes college worthwhile. Glassdoor.com reports Adjunct Professors make an average of $42,451.  Not starting salary, but overall average salary. For someone generally expected to have advanced degrees and a lot of experience, that is not a number that instills confidence.

I personally teach not for this “unimpressive pay check” but rather because I love to help students and see them excel in life. It is out of this passion for helping others that I launched the “MillionaireWho” education network, as its very clear to me that there are some skills that aren’t even covered well in schools for those who do attend. I still teach, and still believe it’s a great way to learn for those who will benefit from it.