| In Ireland my college cost €3000 per year and most got it for free through government grants. I lived with my parents and went to the local college because I didn’t have big ambitions. The course gave everyone work placement with most people keeping the job after the course, starting at €28,000 - €35,000 salary on average. My following job 4 years later paid €70,000 and then 2 years later €80,000. At age 28 I am €35,000 above the median Salary of the country which is around €44,000. The ROI has been massive on that €12,000 spent on college. edit:
I additionally have many friends who came from family’s where their parents / siblings were not working and sitting on welfare. through free college via grants, these friends became the first in their families to get degrees and subsequently are earning well over €60,000+ on average. I would also like to highlight that some of these people even only got a very low passing grade and weren’t prodigies by any means of the word. |
I had no hopes nor expectations as to how my degree would end up being of benefit. It allowed me to see another part of the world, and "learn how to learn" so to speak.
I ended up doing another course in computing at the same time, which I had to pay for myself, using any and all free time I had during the college course, paid for by a shitty call center job I managed to get which paid, at the time, about EUR 3,60 / hour.
Later on, I went from approx. 1000 EUR / month in my first professional gig as a Java dev, to doubling that in the same establishment by getting promoted.
Then I got hired by a fortune 500 and left my country of origin (not Ireland) which paid....so much more. Then founding a startup, and now...
My conclusion is that the learning-to-learn aspect of it is of utmost importance. I think college is great for learning how to learn, even more than the content of what it happens to be that one is pursuing.