<p>4 years undergrad at state flagship (in-state) ending in '78 was about $11,000. 1st year salary was $15,900. 145%.</p>
<p>Same school with today’s starting engineering salaries would be more like 60% in round numbers.</p>
<p>On another thread I mentioned that my dad and I figured that his '75 salary was 6.75 times my annual tuition/fees/R&B cost. He made a modest salary. Today, with undergrad tuition+fees+room and board costing (current year) around $26K, the same 6.75 times factor would equate to a salary of about $175K. Put another way, with an average salary for an experienced research technician at around $60K, annual annual tuition/fees/R&B would cost under $9K if they were 1/6.75 or 15% of that salary.</p>
<p>i cant remember the exact costs of my undergrad BUT i was able to pay it and my living expenses by working while attending school. i worked one job 4 hours per day, and then worked at 2 different bars fridays and saturdays. that was back in the mid 70’s and if i remember all jobs were minimum wage and tips (and i had saved money by working summers in highschool)… there is no way imo a student could do that today if a full pay student. even instate you are looking at about 20K per year (tuition and r&b) so at around 8/hr they would need to work 2500 hours …about 48 hours per week!!</p>
<p>It was a fun little game. Mine undergrad was at 50% and for kicks I projected my S1 using the avg. starting pay for his major undergrad and his was 37%. It would be far more interesting to look at 5 years post college I just can’t rememer what my salary was 5 years post…</p>
<p>Completely agree. I have twins; we consider college an investment in THEM. It won’t be a “better” investment if one twin winds up making a lot more money than the other, because that’s not what it’s about. Happy and self-sufficient are the goals.</p>
<p>I probably made more than the loan I had for grad education in this country in the first 2 years of starting to work. I am also not a fan of this thread. My son went to a top LAC and we paid full fare and I am happy that I did. No regrets even now given the situation right now with high unemployment among young people and the struggle he had with finding his first job.</p>
<p>Well, the starting salary is easy - 27,000 (1985, engineering)</p>
<p>Cost is harder to come up with, as I only lived on campus one year, commuted some, cooped and lived off campus, so I’m guessing about 32,700 (private U)</p>
<p>Return - about 82%</p>
<p>I read the OP’s question as total COA, not personal COA. I didn’t pay the COA, as I had scholarships. I think it is an interesting calculation. My parents were not willing to pay anything for my education, other than allowing me to live at home when I commuted, and I had loans to pay off.</p>
<p>I’m thinking my undergrad for 4 years was around $10K. (Tuition and fees was $712.50 a year. I’m not sure about dorms, but I do remember my room and board budget, off campus, senior year, was $125 a month.) My starting salary after graduation was $26,500.</p>
<p>I agree with Querty as starting engineering salaries are one of the few that are very similar across the country with the exception of a few schools, the differences in starting salary are more aligned with the area of concentration than the particular engineering school. If cost/value is an important factor that is something to consider. For some parents it is not a factor in any way and the emotional value or the intellectual peer value is more important than the return. I’m somewhere in the middle…cost/value is one of four or five factors and ultimately “want” to send the kids to the best school for them that we can afford regardless of the “outcome.” I just started looking into starting salaries this year and fortunately for S1 in his area of interest it doesn’t matter all that much where he does his undergrad since starting salaries are pretty similar except that where he is going to college is remote enough that he’ll most likely have to leave the area to find employement - but that’s not all bad either as he can pretty much “pick” an region/city and go from there. We’ve recommended that he wait to go to grad school and see if he can get into a company that will subsidize professional credentialing and grad school, no idea if he’ll follow our advice but it’s on him ultimately. When I graduated back in the 70s that’s what I had to do and it was a ‘bad time’ but there were one or two cities that were growth areas so I started my career in one of those cities and job hopped my way back to where I wanted to live. There are many ways to approach the “job/salary” solution and tackling that first job is simply part of the process. Lots of positive growth along the way.</p>
<p>I’ve often wondered how people feel about return on investment for grad school in and of itself. I personally am glad I never went, as I really don’t think it would have made any difference in my employability and it would have cost a lot of time, and even with employer subsidies, some money. I mention this only because I did so much shift work and travel as an engineer that for many, many years grad school would have been very difficult or impossible to accomplish. I can see the real value, if one is set on it, of going straight out of undergrad.</p>