> Treating the two schools equal understates cost, as the per student average is higher.
Maybe I didn’t make myself clear: the data pulled from the WSJ tool is per student. It’s what the middle individual (per university) expects to owe vs earn. The size of the university doesn’t matter in the context of that data.
> Also, did you “forget” about people with degrees again?
No I didn’t, but people without college degrees earn the median wage and do not have to worry about paying off student loans, which was the earlier contention.
People with college degrees earn above the median wage, at which point the median numbers here don’t really apply to them.
You have to pick your grievance: either you earn the median wage OR you have to worry about paying student loans, but not both. The (wage - expenses) amount is, on average, positive in either case.
The ROI number represents the true value of college, because it not only incorporates the price, it incorporates the net expected returns. Not including the latter obscures more than it illuminates. Simply comparing the price now vs the price in year X is not apples-to-apples, because you were essentially buying a different thing in the 1980’s that was worth less than the unique thing you’re buying today. They just happen to both be named “college degree”.
You're missing the point again. This isn't about the original data. It's about how you combine data from multiple schools to calculate an overall average. If that process doesn't include enrollment, you get the wrong answer.
>> Also, did you “forget” about people with degrees again?
>No I didn’t,
> [four paragraphs about degrees, ignoring non-degreed people again]
I'm not allowed to make the comment that deserves.
To recap this conversation, I cited net tuition data that calculates per student tuition, and pegs public 4 year in-state tuition average at ~$11,000 per student.
You responded by suggesting that university sizes vary, and therefore that data is incomplete (though you still haven’t explained exactly how). You then cited EMU vs UM.
I pulled up the actual per-student data at EMU vs UM, and showed that the data across both 1) corroborates the net tuition calculation, and 2) don’t wildly vary from each other. Again, these are per student calculations. The spot-check samples agree with the aggregate calculation.
> [four paragraphs about degrees, ignoring non-degreed people again]
I didn’t ignore non-degreed people. When analyzing people that don’t have degrees, we have to try to understand what the root cause is: whether it’s because they don’t want to attend, because they couldn’t get admission, or because they couldn’t afford it. I’m simply making the argument that reason #3 is no more likely today than it was 40 years ago. I gave you maybe 4 paragraphs arguing why that is the case (degree confers higher salary that more than pays for the up-front cost + everyone has access to student loans + median loan amount is roughly == price of an entry level car)
In the context of a conversation about the costs of college, I’m also pointing out that (by definition), non-degreed people don’t have to worry about those costs. Non-degreed people are also overwhelmingly the people that earn the median wage, and if you’ve paid attention this entire thread, the numbers for median wage earners are positive — even if not as positive as their degree-holding counterparts.
Maybe I didn’t make myself clear: the data pulled from the WSJ tool is per student. It’s what the middle individual (per university) expects to owe vs earn. The size of the university doesn’t matter in the context of that data.
> Also, did you “forget” about people with degrees again?
No I didn’t, but people without college degrees earn the median wage and do not have to worry about paying off student loans, which was the earlier contention.
People with college degrees earn above the median wage, at which point the median numbers here don’t really apply to them.
You have to pick your grievance: either you earn the median wage OR you have to worry about paying student loans, but not both. The (wage - expenses) amount is, on average, positive in either case.
The ROI number represents the true value of college, because it not only incorporates the price, it incorporates the net expected returns. Not including the latter obscures more than it illuminates. Simply comparing the price now vs the price in year X is not apples-to-apples, because you were essentially buying a different thing in the 1980’s that was worth less than the unique thing you’re buying today. They just happen to both be named “college degree”.