<p>How about one for living at home and living away?</p>
<p>So many students and parents accept without question the necessity of a “going away to college” experience, which of course comes at a price. The cost of attending a Cal State school and living at home has skyrocketed all the way to about 5K per YEAR, plus books.</p>
<p>“All the service academies would have an infinite ROI.”</p>
<p>I think any true education has an infinite ROI. Service academies have no monopoly on providing a good education, despite the current trend to romanticize all things military. As someone from a military family who married into a military family, I can assure you that the word “heroes” to describe anyone in uniform is a bizarre contemporary fetish I hope we as a society soon outgrow.</p>
<p>I have met some service academy grads who were not truly educated in any sense of the word, just as I have known some who were educated in the only true sense of the word: that is, they knew how to think critically and act ethically on that thinking.</p>
<p>^^ I think the point about service academies is that there is no financial cost.</p>
<p>^^ if so then I am way off base and apologize… but if we’re talking about ROI then “no financial cost” is not exactly true, since a military commitment, while having value in other ways, takes a big toll on some prime earning years</p>
<p>^^ MD Mom had it right. </p>
<p>^ The prime earning years are not those right out of college. And in four years an academy grad’s earnings are at $56K before adding in housing and meals. The military only starts to lose ground to the civilian sector after about the 10 year point.</p>
<p>That being said, no one should go in the military for pay. There are more important reasons.</p>
<p>^ Having been through this with family members who had engineering degrees and then served for 6 and 8 years in the military for a fraction of what they could have made out of college, I don’t think that ROI works in most cases, especially for those with engineering degrees right out of college - because those are the years when engineers make proportionately the most vis a vis their other-degreed peers.</p>
<p>Now in some cases, it can pay off handsomely - as when you are in high tech weaponry procurement and know how to translate that into useful knowledge working for a Beltway bandit. And if you retire with a certain (high) rank and relatively low scruples, you can definitely cash in. But those are the exception, not the rule.</p>
<p>I do think military service makes for better employees, and that’s why I like to hire them. Provided everything else is equal.</p>
<p>“…in four years an academy grad’s earnings are at $56K before adding in housing and meals. The military only starts to lose ground to the civilian sector after about the 10 year point.”</p>
<p>And lots of young officers jump out around year ten. As the wife of a West Point grad who served for 27 years (and attained one of the higher ranks), retired and now works for a contractor, I find post #26 pretty offensive. In my experience, the Academy grads who stay in long enough to make it to 0-6 and above have very high morals and have no trouble getting jobs. They work super long hours, don’t take sick time, and don’t whine. And I am guessing that in my 27 years as a wife of a soldier, I’ve known quite a number of these men (no women).</p>
<p>And I think the whole “fraction of what they could have earned” is another one of the fallacies that fill the minds of the captains who can run the world. End of rant. Someone else can get it back on track.</p>
<p>I think the line “working for a Beltway Bandit” describes the bias of the poster towards defense firms well enough.</p>
<p>These are the same defense firms that have supported our military’s quest to become the only remaining superpower in the world (which has been successfully achieved). </p>
<p>Okay, so we had some $300 hammers. We also have drones, high-tech jets, and entire cities on ships that allow us to take our well-trained and well-equipped military to any place on earth to counter those that would do us harm. </p>
<p>Do we spend too much for this? Possibly, but then I also know that there haven’t been any random bombings or terrorist plots or kidnappings for ransom taking place anywhere around here lately–</p>
<p>Despite not being a study I believe there is significant value in this data. It shows the value of technical degrees.</p>
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<p>Not so fast!</p>
<p>Would it still change if the basis for the ROI was the ACTUAL net cost of the education?
The list posted by Roger Dooley consists mostly of schools known for their very generous financial aid. For many, attending a private school that offers good financial aid is more affordable than the local state university. </p>
<p>Will payscale consider adding a Peer Assessment to please the well-known CC crowd that is bound to reject this survey.</p>
<p>^ You should be pleased with the original ranking, xiggi… it’s even got your technical sister school up at HYPSM level. My school seems to do fine without adding a peer assesment but I wouldn’t object if it enhanced the original ranking…again it’s the top public…but everyone already knew that.</p>
<p>True, UCB. And this is not even a list for best pranks or best parties. A dark day for the LAC haters.</p>
<p>This survey has not ability to control for student quality, and does not normalize choice of major.</p>
<p>Show me a study that looks only at say, engineering, controls student quality by SAT and AP test scores, and reports ROI. That would be interesting.</p>
<p>This is not a “survey” at all in any proper use of the term which implies some statistical method was used. It is an online unflitered and untested bunch of numbers with no meaningful scientific meaning or rigor. It is worse than the “survey” a TV station will do when they say–call in now and vote yes or no on whatever.</p>
<p>For the vast majority, the best ROI will be from the best public engineering school in their state. For most of the rest, the best public business school.</p>
<p>I don’t buy the criticism that the study is flawed because it is only limited to those who filled out the survey - all surveys have that bias. Political surveys, all polls, all market research, clinical research on drugs. etc, etc. That includes the data that schools give you about what their alumni earn. That’s the nature of research.</p>
<p>There is a field of study that compares those who fill out surveys to those who don’t (they hound people until they get the information from them - a major challenge). Often there is not a discernable bias in responses, but it depends on that topic, how it is recruited and administered. </p>
<p>A question I would ask is the sample size for each school in the study. The results are only as good as the sample size. They did this last year also- I would probably start adding together the salary data to get a data-set with less variability.</p>
<p>This has no value in a educated way. If you skimpy divide a million over 30 years that means you make 33000 ROI a year. I guess MIT is off my list.</p>
<p>katy:</p>
<p>the payscale survey is not a bonafide survey at all; there is no sample size. it’s just a website than anyone can go to and voluntarily input data, as many times as one can log in.</p>