上大学这项投资能否获得回报?

Emmy-nominated American Moring, cnn, weekdays, 6 ET.

PayScale.com did this amazing study that I want to bring to you right away this morning that shows you exactly what kind of investment a college education is. Think about the safest investment out there, right, the US Treasury bond. That investment is about 4.5%. Well, PayScale went through a list of 800 colleges and universities to tell you what kind of investment you get back for that college. Is your college worth it? The list goes everything from Black Hills, a state university in South Carolina, or South Dakota rather, sorry. Cost, overall cost is $67,000 and 4.6% return. And University of Kentucky, $84,000 is that four-year cost and 10% return on that investment. And then goes all the way up to MIT where the cost is $189,000 but you get 12.6% return. What do I mean by return? What I mean, when you look over the course of 30 years of working, how much more would you make than if you were just a high school graduate, you didn’t graduate from there. In Black Hills $6900, the University of Kentucky $361,000, look at MIT, $1.6 million is the difference in your earnings over 30 years.

This study is so interesting because it shows us state universities and leading technical universities are the best bank for you buck. It also shows in the words of the Director of Quantitative Analysis there Al Lee that it’s almost infinite the return on your investment if you have financial aid, good financial aid and grants alike in some of these schools. And you look at, in some schools like MIT, Caltech, Harvard, Harvey Mudd, Dartmouth, Stanford, for example, some of them don’t charge, there are caps on what they charge for families who make less than $200,000 a year. So this can be a really important investment and I think it’s our story to say right now because the class of 2010 is still competing with the class of 2009 and so some people are doubting this investment, but PayScale says it’s a valuable investment.

And it’s illuminated in your roman numeral today as well.

It is 4.7%. You’ve heard me say this number before. 4.7% and this is the unemployment rate of someone with their bachelor’s degree. Now think of that, think of how, that’s half almost...

What’s the overall unemployment rate? It’s nearly 10%.

It’s nearly 10%, right. So 4.7%, that’s basically full employment if you have a college degree. Now we always talk about make sure, right now especially, make sure getting a degree in the right kind field, the kind field where you are gonna get a job. Engineers are getting jobs right now, so are economists, so are anybody, people in healthcare. That’s right.

So I’m gonna twit this study, we’re gonna put it on amFIX. If you got a kid going to school you can find your school on here, find out what their return on investment is.

That'll be fun.