Degree ROI Calculator: Does the 4-Year Bachelor's Pay Off?

Why "is a degree worth it?" rarely has one answer

BLS data shows a median bachelor's earns roughly $1.2-1.6M more over a working life than a high-school-only worker. That's the headline. The honest reading underneath: the median masks a 2-3× spread by major. Georgetown's Center on Education and the Workforce finds engineering and computer-science majors earn $80K+ lifetime medians, while early-childhood education and social work majors often net less than non-degreed skilled trades.

So this tool deliberately doesn't tell you "go to college." It prices a specific decision — your specific tuition against your specific expected salary — and shows you the lifetime delta and the year cumulative degree earnings overtake the baseline. The first four years are pure cost; the question is what happens in year 5 and beyond, compounded over a career.

How the math works

1. Degree path cash flow: years 1-4 = −tuition (no salary); year 5+ = starting salary × (1 + growth)^(years post-grad).
2. HS baseline cash flow: year 1+ = HS starting salary × (1 + growth)^(year − 1).
3. Lifetime delta = sum of degree cash flows − sum of HS cash flows over the career horizon (undiscounted).
4. NPV delta applies a real discount rate to each year's cash flow, then takes the difference — a "today's dollars" comparison.
5. Breakeven year is when cumulative undiscounted degree income overtakes cumulative HS income.

Sources: BLS Education Pays (median earnings by education level), Georgetown CEW College Payoff (lifetime earnings by major), and College Board Trends in College Pricing (tuition baselines).

The honest limits: the model uses constant real growth rates — real careers have early-stagnation, mid-career promotion bumps, and late-career plateaus that this smooths over. It also ignores the non-financial value of a degree (signaling for unrelated jobs, network effects, certain regulated professions that require one). And it can't predict your specific outcome — major, school selectivity, and individual performance swing the result well beyond the slider ranges here.

Math runs locally. Inputs never leave your browser. Source on github.

Where this calculation doesn't apply

• Your career requires the credential. Doctor, lawyer, licensed engineer, accountant — the degree isn't optional and the ROI math is moot. Use the slider to estimate the cost of getting in, not whether.
• You'd be taking student loans, not paying cash. This model treats tuition as a cash cost. If you borrow, layer on interest accrual and repayment with the IDR Repayment tool — the real cost can be 30-50% higher over the loan life.
• You're comparing trade school or apprenticeship. Skilled trades (electrician, plumber, machinist) often out-earn many bachelor's majors with near-zero debt. The HS baseline understates that path; treat the result as "degree vs unskilled" not "degree vs trades."
• Major-mismatch risk is high. Switching out of a high-paying major mid-program (or graduating with a degree whose salary premium is low) breaks the salary assumption. Re-run with conservative numbers if you're uncertain about your major.

What to actually do

1. Use real numbers — your specific schools' net price (College Board's Net Price Calculator) and the BLS median for your intended major, not generic "college costs $X."
2. If the lifetime delta is small, ask whether a cheaper school or a different major would shift it materially before committing to debt.
3. If you're financing, run the IDR Repayment or PSLF tools next — the loan-cost layer often matters more than tuition itself.
4. Treat the result as a sanity check, not a verdict. The non-financial value (network, signaling, fulfillment) genuinely matters and isn't here.