Is It Worth the Money to Get a College Degree? Lets Do the Math and Find Out!

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At the median, graduates with a bachelor’s degree earn $2.8 million over the course of their careers, according to the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, compared to $1.6 million for high school graduates.

The correlation between higher earnings can be based on education received and employers' basis for people with degrees.

Bachelor's Degree Students

The median yearly earnings for a 25-34yr with a bachelor's degree is 59.600, while a high school graduate earns 36,600. (+$20,000 premium)

Master's Degree Students

The median yearly earnings for a 25-34yr with a bachelor's degree is $69.700, while a high school graduate earns $59.600. (+$10,000 premium rounded)

How long does it take to break even on your college investment?

How long it would take to catch up to someone not earning a degree would depend on how long your degree program is and how much total debt you accumulated.

For students that hack their degrees in one year, you are literally printing money as you can catch up after only 1 year of working, considering your debt is 20k or less.

For students that do a master's degree in a couple of years for a reasonable price of 20k or less, you may have to wait a few years longer.

Important note about lifetime earnings

If you saved 20k a year (which equals the median of how much a bachelor's degree earns over HS diploma holder) & invested it in the S&P 500 (avg 10% return per year), you would end up with 1 million after 20 years. After 40yrs, it's around 8 million. (Far higher than the $1.2m lifetime  earnings you would have with zero investing)

I do believe there are some limits on how much you can spend on college and you don't want to end up being a Dave Ramsey meme for the total amount of college loans you took.