usa, educationThe University of British Columbia (consistently in the Top 40 Universities worldwide) has an annual tuition of $5,000 Canadian and a population of 36k students. While Harvard University (consistently in the Top 10 Universities worldwide) has an annual tuition of $33,000 USD and a population of 7k students. UBC has 7 times as many students and one-seventh the tuition–all while maintaining a world class ranking. Are American Students getting their money’s worth? I am not asking about just Harvard students. I am asking about American students in general.
[Edit] I looked up some American public universities with similar ranking here. It is interesting to note that American Private Universities take the top spots over their Private counterparts. Most of the universities on the list that are not American are public universities.
The University of California Santa Barbara has a ranking two above UBC (which was 30th) and in-state tuition of $31,000.
the University of Illinois (32nd) has a tuition of $14,400 in-state.
The Washington University Saint Louis (38th) has a tuitiont of $40,900 in-state.
The University of Wisconsin (43rd) has in-state tuition of 8k? this was not obvious.
The University of California Irvine (49th) has in-state tuition of $23,300.
I decided to look of the University of Toronto (Canadian) (17th), which has in-province annual tuition of $4,500 to $8,500.
I answered a similar question over at the Personal Finance Stack Exchange:
A PriceWaterhouseCoopers report on behalf Universities UK in 2006 and another by the Washington-based College Board in 2007 indicate that graduates of higher education can earn anywhere from \$400,000 to $1 million more, after tax and education loans are paid, than do those who start work with only a high-school qualification.
[From my blog...]
Over your lifetime your higher education will earn you far more than any other income and investments you forego while attaining that education.
In the case of the list of various education costs by institution, you need to ask yourself a simple question: how much would you be prepared to spend to gain a guaranteed return of a minimum of $400,000?
To complete the evaluation it would be useful if all universities published the average returns on investment for their various degree programs. That way, if you're agnostic and pragmatic regarding your study choice, you could select the best degree program for your investment.
Some universities will grant greater access to better jobs than others, but it appears that all offer good returns. Even your worst-case example - Washington University charging \$40,900 - would be a reasonable investment if they offered a $400,000 return.
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