Investment in education of children is one of the most important factor in parent’s lives. Mostly, the parents would like to invest where they think their children will be able to get maximum financial reward. The institutes gain popularity and value on the job ratio and the salaries of their graduates. Industry, on the other hands, pays the graduates of reputed college and university graduates more. On the basis of these facts, America’s most sought after college is Harvey Mudd science and engineering school. Also, the graduates of Department of computer science at Stanford University get the highest pays in the country. Virginia University ranks first in dollar-for-dollar investment.
Keeping in mind all the above mentioned factors, one can easily get the idea about which college is considered to have the most valued degree in the USA? A this type of study has been made by Payscale. Payscale is a private company which keeps tracks of the salaries in the country. Report for this year can be found at following address http://www.payscale.com/college-roi/.
Let’s assume the cost is the time and money spent to finish with the studies. The cost for Stanford University graduate degree is $ 2, 36,000 which is too high. It places Stanford among the top ten costly institutes. However, the students get grants in many high ranked institutes which lower the net cost. If we take time and cost into account, considering grants as well, we get the graduation cost as $74,000.
How does Payscale calculate the benefit? Well, it is pretty interesting, it takes 20 years income surveys. This data is enough to let you know that how much a graduate has earned in all these years. Suppose a university costs $1,00,00 and the graduate earns $1 million in 20 years then the return is $900,000. Annualized ROI is also calculated by Payscale which is helpful in determining dollar-for-dollar advantage. Here we see the example of 10 institutes whose graduates earn the most:
It is clear that the Mudd’s college is the most impressive in this regard but its cost is also very high. However, MIT, Caltech and other institutes are best for dollar-for-dollar benefit. Here is the fun figure:
Now, lets have a glance on the graduate degree in America subject wise. Again, we would have to pay thanks to Payscale as they have calculated this for us as well. And here, we come to know the most valuable degree in America is computer science either from Stanford, Berkeley or Columbia. Other subject is economics from Stanford. Here is a graph:
But UV has highest dollar-for-dollar investment. No other university can beat it in this matter and interestingly it does not matter whether you study engineering or economics or computer science.