Is My Degree Worth It?

Is my degree worth it?

Pick a school and program to project your earnings and see when you'd pay off your loans. Then compare that with what you'd likely earn without college, adjusted for your own background.

Earnings with the degree Part 1
What the degree costs Part 1
Earnings without college Parts 2 and 3
What your degree is worth Your result

Your degree and what it costs

Projects your income from median earnings for your program in the U.S. Department of Education's College Scorecard, then tracks your loans and interest to estimate when you'll pay off your debt.

Choose a school first.

Tuition, housing, and books, minus scholarships and grants.

How you'll pay for it

Split the yearly cost across these three. They need to add up to 100%.

Total100%

0% $0 a year
100% $0 a year. No interest until you graduate, like federal subsidized loans.
0% $0 a year. Interest starts right away.
10%

What you'd earn without college

Estimates your earnings in a job that doesn't need a degree, using a model trained on U.S. Census data for more than 3 million Americans whose highest education is a high school diploma. It also uses your answers from part 1.

If you pick a job that's hard to get without a degree, such as engineering, the estimate may run high: the few people who do it without one tend to be exceptional.

Gender

Adjust for your background

People who skip college often differ from people who go, in ways that affect earnings: family income, support at home, test scores. Someone from a wealthy, well-connected family who skips college to become a filmmaker has better odds than someone without those advantages. Without accounting for this, it's hard to tell whether the earnings gap comes from the degree or from everything else.

These questions adjust your no-college estimate for your own situation. They also use your answers from parts 1 and 2.

Your answers are saved along with your results.

About you

Height
How many times have you been arrested?
How would you rate your health?

How well do these describe you?

How organized are you?
Are you more quarrelsome or agreeable?
Are you more trusting or distrustful?
“I am extraverted and enthusiastic.”
“I am anxious and easily upset.”
“I am sympathetic and warm.”
“I am conventional and uncreative.”
“I do not intend to follow every little rule that others make up.”
“Setbacks don't discourage me.”
“I can easily stay focused on projects that take more than a few months.”