What is the real cost of a college education for a nation

In 2025 there are approximately 5700 accredited colleges and universities in the United States.  Roughly 1900 are public and roughly 3800 are private.   This number includes about 1560 vocational or trade schools and that is an important number to remember.  College is one of the most important educational tools we can acquire to live a better, more financially fulfilling life.  So we are told.  If you went to high school from 1965 to today, you were probably told at some point in no uncertain terms, that in order to be successful in America, you have to go to college.  And why should that not be true?  After all, we are told that college grads on average make over 800,000 more dollars over a lifetime than high school grads and that is a huge difference.  That translates into an extra earning per year of nearly 25,000 dollars in favor of college graduates.  According to data from the NY FED, college grads have a median income of roughly 52,000 dollars per year versus high school grads, with a median income of 30,000 dollars per year.   That would translate into a gross bi-monthly paycheck of roughly $2000.00 versus $1153.00 (assuming 26 paychecks per year) for a difference of about $846.00 or about $1700 per month.  Lets set aside tax implications for being in a higher bracket and just accept at face value the idea that the take home pay would be equally higher in that scenario.   

We are constantly told this $800K repeatedly, as a benchmark to aspire to in order to obtain a college degree, as if those who choose not to attend college are somehow less likely to have a fulfilling and productive life.  But is college education really all that is cracked up to be?  Are the facts and figures really all true?  Are we a better educated society today, with more income potential than our parents’ generation?  After all, one of the main aspects of higher education you never seem to find in the glossy brochures of academia is the cost of higher education.  For example, in 1965 the average cost of a college education was roughly $500 a year, or about $4000.00 in today’s dollars making a 4-year college degree cost around $16,000. 

But the average cost of attending college today in 2025, for a 4-year diploma, not counting master’s degrees or ugh… doctorates… is over $30,000 for out of state tuition, NOT counting room and board for a total of 120,000 dollars or almost 10 times higher.  So, although there might be an earnings gap of roughly $1700 per month in favor of a college grad over a high school grad, a college loan can carry a hefty repayment per month up to $1200 dollars a month for 10 years or more using the numbers I found!  That is a yearly repayment schedule of almost $15,000 per year so suddenly that income gap between college and high school grads is down to 500 dollars a month or $250 per paycheck!  That is assuming that the college graduate has a diploma in a field that is highly desirable, such as biochemistry or medical technician, with the lowest unemployment rates of less than 2% and NOT in a field where the unemployment rates are running close to 55% for technology and up to almost 80% for criminal justice or performing arts. Let’s not even talk about the comparatives between a college graduate’s income with a degree in a field such as hospitality or leisure or music or art where the unemployment numbers run higher than 71% versus a non-degreed person who goes to a trade school and becomes an electrician, with a median starting salary of $58,500 in the US. 

In 1965 the United States had approximately 20 million college graduates versus almost 150 million college graduates in 2023 (app 48% of the nation) according to the latest data.  First, why 1965 specifically?  Because on November 08, 1965, President Lyndon B Johnson signed into law the Higher Education Act of 1965 stating,

"to strengthen the educational resources of our colleges and universities and to provide financial assistance for students in postsecondary and higher education".

So for the last 5 decades, American parents by an large, across every educational, political and economic spectrum have drummed into their children the idea that they must attend college to get a better paying job, to live the American Dream.  And for a while it looked like the idea worked.  The US was able to accomplish some incredible milestones, which we should all be very proud of as Americans despite all our differences.  These milestones included the putting a man on the moon and our space program, the development of which has allowed for countless inventions to be made available for all people resulting in a much higher quality of life and a significant boost to the GDP of the nation.  We ended the war in Vietnam, and we won the Cold War, resulting in a 30-year timeframe where the entire globe, although still possessing major destructive weapons, has enjoyed a largely relatively peaceful existence for the first time in our history with significant global economic growth and the expansion of trade for most nations on the planet. 

A higher education has allowed a largely previously disenfranchised group of Americans to take advantage of fields of work or careers which were previously denied to them.  A higher education in the 1960 and 1970s was instrumental in our understanding of the world around us, so we can realize how to change our ways in a manner that is less detrimental to the extension of human life on this planet by reducing our pollutants and eliminating actions which were so detrimental that it negatively impacted the survival of life on Earth.  A lot of good things came out of college educated peoples’ minds which we are the current beneficiaries of.  Medicine, engineering, science, micro and macroeconomics, all benefited from graduate students wanting to advance their educations and extensively researching and publishing data that allowed us to have the highest standard of living in history of any people. 

Some of those things are still true!  Our colleges and universities are still hotbeds of research and technological advancements, some of which we can’t even understand the implications of today let alone see any usefulness in our limited societal corridors of 2025.  The advancements in computing power and the development of quantum computing, which is in its infancy today, and we don’t even comprehend how these tools will be used in the future to prevent death, extend life and usher in a time where every single molecule and atom in a living body can be seen and corrected to prevent cell damage, eliminate aging and diseases we commonly associate with a death sentence such as cancer or Alzheimer’s will simply cease to exist.  All due to advancements understood as a result of colleges investing in students and students wanting to better themselves with college educations. 

There is a problem, however. Those are areas where we are actually falling behind in our quest for knowledge and the amount of funding available for research is shrinking, not growing.  What is growing, along with the number of college graduates, is the divide between our ability to think of something and our ability to build something or maintain something.  We are no longer the tinkerers we used to be, we are no longer the engineers and workers we used to be.  College degrees which carry less than useful employment skills are being utilized on a larger and larger scale and at the end of the 4 years, all a college grad can show for their efforts is a diploma, a huge debt and a job making less than their peers who chose to study a trade instead of going to college. 

The turning point in this endeavor can be pinpointed to a specific event in 1982 that has essentially relegated all nonscientific college fields to the same level as high school level earning potentials.   Rule 10-B 18 of the 1982 tax law transformed everything we know and understand about wealth accumulation, income and money management and that will be the topic for my next article. But this law also turned a college degree on its head and what was previously a prestigious and wealth defining development in a person's life, was essentially relegated to just another experience that they can partake in without realistically expecting anything significantly better in return than their peers who choose to skip this experience.

I’m not saying college is a bad thing – in fact, I know my kid will go to college.  What I am saying is we should refocus on the reason WHY we want to get a higher education.  We need to redefine what college is and what kind of educational tools we are going to be employing there.  We need a reawakening of why an educated society needs to exist and not a poorly educated one.  We need a new leadership idea that clearly shows us why a higher education is important, and it cannot be just the sake of knowledge.  Some of us definitely enjoy debating with tremendous gusto the duality of King Priam’s existence, on one hand being the newly crowned winner of a long, hard fought war where he saw his enemy give up and disappear resulting ion his strengthened position and his city’s victory balanced against his vanity in opening the doors of Troj to bring in a cheap glory gift that ultimately proved to be his downfall.  But enjoying a spirited discussion about the Odyssey does not put food on the table for most people and having a degree in ancient Greek mythology does not advance the career prospects of a Mid Florida college graduate. 

There has to be a purpose behind a college degree and there must be a clearer reason why someone would give up 4 years of their lives to study something.  What kind of advancement can society expect out of the knowledge gained over those 4 years?  If the goal of college is simply to put off the inevitable and party for 4 years, that is a horrible way to think of it because basically a person at that point is spending 100,000 dollars to attend a 4 year long party.  Whereas if they were to simply get a job and learn a trade, they could probably make that money in 3-4 years easily, which living simply from the age of 19-25 and building their future.  Then they could party in their 30s without having to worry about paying off a loan that costs them more than a house payment.