Data Says That Going To These Colleges Won’t Pay Off

Getting a college diploma has become a rite of passage in modern American culture. But that fancy piece of paper can oftentimes come with a hefty price tag, and it’s only going up. People have to bite their nails and check their bank accounts as they make decisions about colleges that will not only give them the best education within their chosen field, but will also be the most cost effective.          

Because so many people are in the market for a college education, lots of data has been collected on factors like tuition, graduation rates, and employment rates in order to try to determine the overall financial value of an institution. Accordingly, the data company PayScale annually ranks colleges in terms of return on investment (ROI) and determines which schools provide the best investment based on the difference between the median pay of a college graduate over 20 years and the median pay of a high school graduate over 24 years. And the data says that attending these schools simply isn’t a good financial choice…

Unity College

Unity College, nestled in a beautiful rural setting in Unity, Maine, is a private liberal arts school that has a special emphasis on those who wish to study sustainability, environmental studies, and natural resource management. While these are all good and noble pursuits, Unity College demands a high price for such an education and, to top it off, a pretty poor ROI.

Yearly tuition is nearly $38,000, meaning that the 60% of students who graduate in four years—out of less than 800 students at the college—end up spending over $150,000 over the course of their education. This means that the 20-year net return on investment at Unity College comes out to -$82,100.