re: Some colleges will charge up to $95,000 this year...

It matters where you studied undergrad. All you have to do is look at employment reports of MIT, Harvard, Stanford vs LSU, Ole Miss, ULL. 1st year out of school salary is over 2x for first set compared to 2nd set. By mid career, it's much higher. My brother works for a large oil company and was told by coworkers they had to convince their boss to let in a petroleum engineer grad from LSU as they seldom do it. They pretty much only accept UT and A&M. This is one of the best paying oil companies with a huge bonus. I personally went to an Ivy on scholarship. I was one of 300 applicants for the role I applied to and got it. I was solely narrowed from 300 to final 2 they said for the name of my school. The other guy that's my coworker in my role went to a top 10 university. Tip top paying job with high equity.

I know a petroleum engineer from ULL. He said not one large operator came on campus in 2016 in downturn. He busted his arse for 4 years to try to get on with an operator and could never make it despite a 3.5 GPA, eventually settled for refinery on site job. 3.5 in PETE is really good even if ULL. He struggled as with his classmates bc the oil operators were taking T A&M, UT, etc.

Just like if you're the same exact college football player but you went to LSU, UGA, or Bama compared to McNeese St, you're much more likely to get drafted higher by going to top SEC football schools.

Are there plenty cases of an LSU grad working with a UT grad? Yes, there are. In general as a mass, it does matter. Just like what star recruit you are does matter. People who think it doesn't always cherry pick a specific case, but the data definitely suggests otherwise whether what star recruit you are or what undergrad you went to by career earnings from employment reports.

All you have to do is look at career employment reports by school. The school I went to makes 2x what LSU employment reports for 1st year out of school. So yes it does matter in general. Anyone, which is a large majority of the population bc majority doesn't get into those schools, who doesn't think so is ignoring obvious data and is just salty. Can it be overcome? Obviously, but we're talking large masses of people and general trends.

My son went to Davidson and it was $63,000 in 2020. Now it's up to $84,000, which is insane.

(we didn't pay $63k...he had scholarships)

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Luckily I attended LSU when out of state tuition was still reasonable. It’s insane how much it has gone up just from the early to mid 2000s.

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I went to LSU pre TOPS. It was around 1k per semester.

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It matters where you studied undergrad. All you have to do is look at employment reports of MIT, Harvard, Stanford vs LSU, Ole Miss, ULL. 1st year out of school salary is over 2x for first set compared to 2nd set.

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At some point during your Ivy League education you should have learned that correlation =/= causation.

Yes, you will have higher average salaries from schools like Harvard, MIT, and Stanford than your average public university. But that’s only part of the story:

1. The average SEC entering freshman isn’t a realistic candidate for Harvard so it’s a bit of a silly comparison to begin with. In order for the comparison to hold any weight you would need to somehow compare salaries for graduates who went to public schools but could still get in at the Ivy schools.

In other words - yes, smarter students have higher average salaries and Ivy League schools have smarter average students. That’s fairly obvious, but it doesn’t tell you whether an Ivy League education is actually worth the cost.

2. Geography plays a huge part in average salaries. Most people graduating from land grant schools in the south stay in fairly low-COL areas. Most people graduating from elite coastal schools stay in very high-COL areas.

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I know a petroleum engineer from ULL. He said not one large operator came on campus in 2016 in downturn.

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I’m curious - do you work in the oil industry? Because if so, you should know that 2016 was the absolute worst time to be graduating in PETE from anywhere. The entire O&G industry was a bloodbath.

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Just like if you're the same exact college football player but you went to LSU, UGA, or Bama compared to McNeese St, you're much more likely to get drafted higher by going to top SEC football schools.

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Same exact concept. Correlation =/= causation. The same players don’t go to McNeese. LSU, Bama, and UGA create more draft picks because they recruit better players.

So out of the degree programs they offer, which ones actually are worth a shite?

Let’s look at that because that will answer many questions

Also, 25% of the classes that a student has to take is complete BS and has very little to do with their degree

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And then they did away with legacy students where if you were a child of a graduate you can avoid the non resident fee.

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greedy bastards.

Is TOPS still a thing? Remember being so jealous that seemingly everyone was on that program Also, I’d say less than 10% of my studies contributed to my success in the real world today. I was a History major with the plan of going to Law School before the housing/market crash and didn't want to take on more debt. I’ve now made a career in IT Sales. So any History or other mostly worthless degree majors reading this…there is hope for you yet if you can talk to people, work hard, and learn a product.

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It's probably more than 25%. Closer to 50%.

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Eh, this is highly dependent on the degree. My degree was ChE and we certainly did not have a lot of fluff. I just looked at the current flow chart:

- ChE: 57 hours
- Chemistry: 19 hours
- Math: 16 hours
- Physics & other engineering: 9 hours
- English: 6 hours
- Econ: 3 hours
- Biology: 3 hours
- Arts/humanities/social sciences: 15 hours
- Total: 128 hours

The “unnecessary” courses (gen ed electives) are ~12% of the curriculum.

Ridiculous

... and the govt. is using smoke and mirrors to deal with this issue of tuition climbing to $90,000. per year.

Creating an "error" in the FAFSA application which would give the student additional funds, but in reality NOT

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Latest FAFSA blunder leaves colleges in ‘compromising’ position

BY LEXI LONAS - 04/04/24 6:00 AM ET

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LINK