Sadly, there is very little research to indicate how much you could expect to earn after gaining a degree from this, that, or the other college. We do have statistics reports of averages. This one at Payscale.com is an example. But an average is not a prediction of what your son or daughter will make upon graduation. About half the kids make more than that. And half make less. Which will be your child? Above or below the average?

Even with salary averages by college, educational ROI would not be predictive for an individual student. An average is an average, after all, and how could we predict that Susie would earn above the average and that Sam would earn below that average? (Unless, of course, Susie were from Lake Wobegone…where all the children are above average…).

Plus there are kids at cheaper schools that make way more than the averages for those expensive private schools. Who made the better bet: the kid who paid less for college, or the one who paid more?

The fact is that aggregate data is unhelpful in providing clear guidance to individual high school graduates. Would you buy a Harvard degree if you were destined to earn below the salary average for that institution? What crystal ball will tell us where we will end up five, ten, or twenty-five years after graduation?

The reason for the dearth of the sort of solid research for which we all pine is that it cannot be done. Solid, scientific, and predictive research requires double-blind experiments with variables that can be controlled. When it comes to educational ROI, such controlled experiments would be impossible.

Why? Because human beings are darned complex, and too many uncontrollable variables enter the equation. What are the variables that have an impact on one’s financial success in life (other than the name of the university on one’s diploma)?

Let’s start a list.

• Educational background prior to entering college (e.g., Philips Exeter vs PS 142)
• Socio-economic status prior to entering college (e.g., New England blueblood vs. first-generation Sudanese)
• Grades earned in college (e.g., a studious 3.5 GPA or a slacker 2.4
• Major in college (e.g., engineering vs. education)
• Location a person chooses to live in after college (e.g., Santa Barbara vs. Omaha)
• The type of profession one seeks (e.g., teacher vs. neurosurgeon)
• Other skills a student develops beyond the major (e.g., the philosophy major who also studies organic chemistry)
• Jobs or internships the student might have had during college (e.g., dishing ice cream on Cape Cod vs. doing an accounting gig with PriceWaterhouseCoopers)
• Absence or presence of well-connected family members (e.g., a mom who CEO of Acme Technology and raised gobs of dough for a presidential campaign vs. a dad who drives a cab in Brooklyn)

Get the picture? Controlling for all these variables so that we could develop a scientific study that gave us meaningful comparisons to help us predict educational ROI for a particular student is virtually impossible. No aspiring academic with an understanding of research methodology would take this on.

But the biggest problem is that we can never compare a single kid who had two lives one in which he went to a high-priced college and one in which he went to a community college and later transferred to the state school.

Or the student who majored in business in his first life and then majored in English in his second.

Or the student who earned good grades in his first life, and then floated by with a C-average in his second.

Now, if we could clone people and set the clones off in two different directions that would be really cool. And conclusive. We could see which genetically identical person earned the most after having attended this school or the other. As long as those genetically identical individuals had lived identical lives in the same household to the age of 18 (if, however, the clones were “separated at birth,” we’d see our research devolve into the nature vs. nurture morass).

The fact is, folks, that we all want to be able to scientifically tote up the numbers to come up with a predictive return on our educational investment.

Can’t be done.

So we’re left with a silly, vapid argument between those who say “spend the money” and those who say “save your money.” Both are right.  Both are wrong. The argument gets us nowhere.

Fundamental principles we can consider in making the decision

Still, might there be some fundamental principles we can consider in making the decision about whether to spend tons of money on a college education? Let’s see if we can’t come up with some.

1.  How big an investment is the price tag, relative to current family income? Some can easily afford a quarter of a million dollars for an education. Some cannot. So if you have the money, it’s worth it. If you don’t have it, it’s not worth it. (Remember Aesop’s fable of the “Fox and the Grapes”?). Hmmm…this is not a very satisfying fundamental principle. Next!

2.  Will you have to go into debt to finance this expensive degree? The bigger the debt burden, the less likely the return on the investment will cancel out that debt. Then again, it depends on what you end up doing after that degree. If you’re a brain surgeon or a successful venture capitalist, then who cares? You’ll be able to pay off that debt in the blink of an eye. But if you become a teacher or an unsuccessful venture capitalist, then clearly the investment wasn’t worth it. But notice: you can’t know whether the investment was worth it until AFTER you have a successful–or unsuccessful career! This is getting frustrating, isn’t it?

3.  Speaking of which, your professional aspirations do play a role. If you plan to be a kindergarten teacher or an orchestral musician, then spending a quarter of a million bucks for an education isn’t worth it. However, if you want to be a brain surgeon, you have no choice but to go to college…and then go into debt for medical school. But here’s a contrarian thought: do you have to go to college to be a successful business executive?

Not necessarily, of course (we all know the story of Bill Gates, for whom Harvard “wasn’t worth it”). To go a step further, do you really have to go to college at all to make a lot of money? I have a cousin who went to school to learn how to do auto body work. He can now buy and sell me several times over, sends his kids to elite private schools, drives a brand new Mercedes, and has a vacation home in Vermont. Where did I go wrong….?

4.  Savvy shoppers for educational services should do some price comparisons. But the fact is that very few students pay the actual tuition sticker price. You see, because of the way financial aid (both merit-based and need-based) is allocated, each individual pays a different price for that education–especially at the colleges with heavy price tags.

So here again we have another variable for which we much provide some scientific control in our research: we need to compare students who paid full price or students who received a full scholarship. Or half a scholarship. Or something. (Oh my:  not another variable for which we need a control!)

5.  There are aspects of education that do not boil down to dollars and cents. For some, education is not merely about preparing for a profession. For some, it’s also about intellectual inquiry–pushing your capacities to the limit. There is a spiritual element to education that transcends a “market price.” This is all well and good: but it certainly doesn’t get us any closer to calculating our educational ROI. To do a calculation, we need numbers, and these folks who find an intrinsic value in education just aren’t numbers people.

The fact is that the argument as to whether or not an expensive private education is “worth it” simply cannot be won. The argument isn’t really an argument: it all boils down to one’s personal values and preferences.

Can people who go to state universities have satisfying, successful careers?

You bet. Can Ivy League graduates end up earning less than $40k per year for the past 25 years? You bet (I have a Dartmouth friend who is a respected ornithologist who lives in the Amazon, has discovered many new species, and has never made more than $40k in a year: was his Ivy League investment “worth it”?).

Advice on the worth of an expensive private college education

So in the absence of research, we need a crystal ball. Or we need good, solid, personalized advice from someone who can help a family identify their priorities. Perhaps a professional guidance counselor who can help a student explore his or her academic strengths and weaknesses.

Who can discuss “educational philosophy” with a family to find out whether the educational priority is on “getting a job” or on “leading the examined life.” What it all amounts to is “different strokes for different folks.” My job is not to win an argument. My job is to figure out which stroke you’re swimming and help keep you moving in your chosen direction.

Mark Montgomery
Educational Consultant

The post Is An Expensive Private College Education Worth the Money? first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

The post McDaniel–A High Quality, High Value Liberal Arts Education first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

It’s true that our society has bought into the myth that more education is necessarily better.  While there are averages and overall statistics that may influence our decisions, we have to remember that each of us is an individual.  Whatever  the “averages” tell us does not necessarily apply in a specific instance.

I pride myself in taking the time and effort to get to know an individual student well enough to make good recommendations.  And I have been known to recommend paths other than college for young people for whom it may not be the best path.

In the end, however, each of us has to come to our own decision. But segments like this one from 20/20 help us to keep our eyes wide open.

Mark Montgomery

College Counselor

The post ABC News: Some Debt-Laden Gradutes Wonder Why They Bothered With College first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

My reader made the point that public universities can be a better deal, and that the list of public universities on Princeton Review‘s list are much more accessible to the “rest of us” than the ultra-selective “Top 10 Value Colleges” like Harvard and Yale.

Certainly Princeton Review will defend its selection criteria, saying that they have taken into account academic factors as well as financial aid practices.  But choosing a college on the basis of this list alone would clearly be silly.  In qualitative terms, the education one might receive from William & Mary vs. the New College of Florida would be quite different.

Let’s also look at some interesting facts and figures that are masked by these ratings.

At less than $5,000 a year, tuition at New College is a bargain for residents of Florida.  Out-of-staters will be charged over $23,000.  Despite the perceived bargain, New College has  a transfer rate of 32% (meaning that 32% of freshmen transfer out at some point before graduation), clearly New College is not enough of a bargain to keep a full third of its entering class.  Of course, this is likely because New College has a special set of characteristics that might make it more (or less) appealing to some students. Choosing this college only on price would be a mistake.

The College of William and Mary and the University of Virginia accept 34% and 35% of their applicants, respectively.  But for applicants from outside the state of Virginia, these schools are as selective as any in the Ivy League.  University of California San Diego accepts 46% of its applicants, but is only slightly easier than the two Virginia schools for out-of-state applicants to be admitted.  So if you choose three universities based on price, you had better have the goods to be admitted.

CUNY–Hunter College is a large urban university in New York City with a great reputation in many fields, and it accepts 49% of those who apply.  Nonetheless, a whopping 64% of its incoming class will not graduate six years later. As one admissions professional I know has said (in another context), to recruit for a school like that is like pouring water into a bucket with a hole in it.

The College of New Jersey qualifies as a hidden gem for many folks, in part because of its small size (about 6,200 undergrads).  It accepts slightly less than half of its applicants, and its graduation rate is quite high.  However, only 5% of its students hail from beyond New Jersey.  As a Colorado boy, I am not convinced many kids I know from the Front Range will stampede to Ewing, NJ, in search of a “bargain”.

This leaves us with one mid-sized university (SUNY Binghamton) with under 12,000 students, and three extra large universities (Florida State, NC State, and Georgia), each with over 30,000 students.  These three have impressive graduation rates, are not impossible to get into (yet always more difficult for students from out-of-state).  Tuition prices for in-state students run about $16,000, and double that for out-of-staters.  But would it really be considered a “bargain” for a student from Colorado to attend SUNY Binghamton and pay more than $40k in tuition instead of attending Colorado State University and paying about $10k?  Is SUNY Binghamton that much better, academically speaking, that the Colorado student should consider it a “bargain”?

While I concede to my dear reader that a quality education is available to most students in America–perhaps even at a bargain price–this business of labeling this or that university as a better “value” is not very helpful to the consumer of educational services.  As I stated in my previous post, the “bargain” is in the eye of the beholder.  The fact that the chartreuse sport coat is very low priced does not mean I will want to buy it (please…I prefer pink).  Or how about the those jeans with the 58-inch waist?  I see that they are very high quality, but they don’t fit me at all well.

Finding the right college is partly about price.  But only partly.  Plus, as I have stated elsewhere, the list price of any university is not necessarily the price YOU will pay.

So I’ll say it again.  Buy these magazines if you wish to bolster the economy, and I’ll send you my thanks.  But if you use these rankings to choose yourself a college, well, caveat emptor.

Mark Montgomery

College Counselor and Personal Shopper

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The post Value Universities for the "Rest of Us"–A Difficult Claim To Maintain first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

I also try to talk to them about class size and accessibility of professors, and the fact that many of our large research universities (both public and private) neglect undergraduate teaching in favor of academic research.

Often these parents won’t listen to me.  Or they just don’t believe me.  Thanks goodness for students who speak the truth about their institutions.

Check out this video from Unigo about the University of Pennsylvania.  Not exactly a ringing endorsment of the Penn education.  Would you slap down $40k in tuition (plus expenses) for huge class sizes and inaccessible professors–all for the reputation of an Ivy League school?

(Answer:  some will, some wont.)

Video – Why I Chose Penn(5) – University of Pennsylvania | Unigo

Mark Montgomery

College Counselor

The post U Penn: Large Class Sizes and Inaccessibility of Profs first appeared on College Admission Counseling.