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BiggerPockets Money Podcast

251: Is College Worth the Cost? This 30,000 Variable Study Says "Sometimes..."

BiggerPockets Money Podcast

BiggerPockets

Education, Investing, Business

4.5 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 22 November 2021

⏱️ 82 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Is college worth it? For the first time in history, we may have a definitive answer to whether or not your specific degree and school choice provides a positive ROI. We know that ROI isn’t the only thing that matters when choosing a degree, but when looking at higher education through a financial independence lens, it’s definitely the highest value. Looking through census, employment, and Department of Education data is number crunching crusader, Preston Cooper. Preston and his team over at The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity put together the most extensive research on college degree ROI ever created. Preston’s findings allow you to parse through over 30,000 degrees and school choices so you (or your child) can make the best decision on where to get a bachelor's degree. Preston discusses the discrepancies between nonprofit and for-profit university degrees, whether or not high-cost schools equal a higher payday through life, and why even going to Harvard doesn’t secure a high ROI. Want to know the true value of your degree? Tune in and check out Preston’s full study! In This Episode We Cover How much you could benefit, in general, from getting an undergraduate degree The degrees that have the highest lifetime ROI Degrees that offer little-to-no or negative financial benefit Whether investing in real estate or a college degree is more worth it  The biggest criticisms of Preston’s study and how he combats them  Dave, Mindy, and Scott’s ROI on their respective degrees  And So Much More! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to the Bigger Poggeds Money Podcast, show number 251, where we interview a absolute

0:06.0

rock star Preston Cooper, a research fellow from the Foundation for Research on Equal

0:11.7

Opportunity and talk about the ROI of a college degree.

0:16.0

And my research has shown that the choice of what you're going to major in in college

0:20.5

can literally make millions of dollars worth of a difference to your financial position

0:25.0

throughout life.

0:26.0

That's one of the most important financial decisions that you can make in your entire lifetime.

0:31.4

And I'm very excited to share the results with all your listeners.

0:36.4

Hello, hello, hello, my name is Mindy Jensen and joining me today are two co-hosts, the

0:40.9

inimitable Dave Meyer, vice president of numbers and data in all things, nerdery for our

0:47.0

bigger pockets and my intrepid co-host Scott Trench CEO of Bigger Poggeds.

0:51.9

Dave, thank you for joining us today.

0:54.4

Thank you.

0:55.4

It's about time.

0:56.4

I've been waiting for an invitation to be on the money show for, I don't know, 250 episodes,

1:02.5

so I'm glad to have finally gotten the call here.

1:06.8

I can't believe we haven't had you on the show yet because I am the president of your fan

1:10.7

club and I love you.

1:12.7

I am so glad you're on the show, not in that way.

1:15.3

Well, thank you.

1:16.3

I mean, my money habits are probably not what your audience is interested in.

1:22.3

So I'm glad that we can't wait.

...

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