Is Going to College a Good Investment?
College degree is good but then it comes at a price which is expensive and also funded with debt. Young people who leave school yearly are chocked with the burden of paying the loan after their school years and this payment can take almost a lifetime. This then raises the question "Is such an investment worth it, and are there other alternatives?".
Left to me, while college would be a great idea for students who intend to reach the peak of the corporate ladder or professional expert, it is a bad idea for the average Johnny. This is because if a total of $150,000 is spent on education and a person would be making about $600,000 in 40 years after leaving school, then it can be said that the return on investment is only about 3% annually.
Looking at that investment and comparing it to putting the same amount in the stock market for 40 years without doing anything at the historic average means that the person would have made 4 times what they would have made in income for 40 years without doing anything specific.
Someone might say that stock markets aren't always doing well, but that is the same thing for colleges. There is no guarantee of a return on the investment. For instance, if a person in the middle of college has an accident which render them immobile, it means the investment has been wasted, or in a case of a dropout, then the ROI on the previous college investment is 0 unless you are Bill Gates.
On the other hand, people who go to college have ambitions where they chase high earning careers compare to those who don't go. A lot of people who also go to colleges do not have high ambitions and that is where the gap is found. Going to college is like a safety net, it will allow people to get high paying jobs and will always open opportunities for higher paying job which are more comfortable than jobs done by people without degrees.
If you are saving up for retirement, then putting your tuition into the stock market might be a good idea but I would advice you do not check it in the next 10 years because it might have increased by a little which can be depressing but if the goal is to travel the world, buy houses, and do lots of great stuffs with money, then going to college so as to have a leverage for higher paying jobs is the best suggestion.
This said, college degree is a good investment depending on the person going to college and the as it gives leverage to people who are going into a career. I didn't want to mention this at the beginning but a college degree isn't a bad investment, the only thing is that if one is going to attend college, then they should treat it as an investment so they can say for sure that they made a good return on their investment.
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