What's Your College Degree Worth?
For students and their parents, it's an important question and one that has been devilishly difficult to answer—until now. PayScale , which collects pay information from individuals using its online pay comparison tools, dug into its trove of 1.4 million reports on U.S. college graduates for Bloomberg Businessweek and put a price tag on the college diplomas handed out at graduation ceremonies this month. The upshot: With the typical college degree from the schools in this report, a graduate will earn about $1.95 million over a 30-year career, netting about $670,000 more than a high-school graduate. Not all schools are created equal, though. At MIT, grads can expect a net return of $1.7 million, making it the most valuable college degree in the nation, while at other schools the earning power of graduates is far less. Before deciding on a school, check out our interactive table of 554 schools—you may be surprised.
