Tuition is a number you can see. Lifetime earnings impact is harder. Here's the framework to estimate ROI honestly.
This used to be a back-of-the-envelope job. Now it is one tap, but the logic has not changed. Tuition is a number you can see. Lifetime earnings impact is harder. Here's the framework to estimate ROI honestly.
Tuition + opportunity cost (4 years of lost wages) + interest on loans. Often $300–500k for a 4-year US degree.
Bachelor's earns ~$1M more lifetime than high school. Engineering/CS doubles that; arts breaks roughly even.
$1M earned over 40 years is worth ~$300k in today's money at a 4% discount rate.
Is grad school worth it? Highly field-dependent. PhDs in academia: usually no. Law from top-14: usually yes. MBA: case-by-case.
What about no degree? Trades, coding bootcamps, sales — multiple paths to $80k+ without a 4-year degree.
The math is the easy part. Acting on what it tells you is where the real win lives.