Whether college education is worth it depends on the discipline

The argument

Assessing the value of university depends on both the end goal and the field of study. If someone wants to work in a hotel or become a tour guide and goes to university to study tourism, the costs may outweigh the benefits. The field of study is not transferrable to many other careers, and the degree is not necessary to get a job in the hotel or tourism sector. However, if someone goes to university to study a STEM (science, technology, engineering, or mathematics) subject, they can expect to earn around three times more in their lifetime than their non-STEM graduate peers. Therefore, some fields of study are worth the cost of university education, while others may not be.

Context

Different fields of study provide different returns on investment. Therefore, the value of a college education depends on the field of study.

Premises

Counter-arguments

That the value of a degree depends partly on the field is reasonable, but the argument reduces a many-sided question to a single variable and rests its case on a misleading statistic. 'Worth' is not only financial: university can carry civic, intellectual and personal value that a lifetime-earnings comparison by subject leaves out entirely. And the headline figure — that STEM graduates earn around three times more than non-STEM peers — conflates correlation with causation: fields that lead to high pay also select for students who are, on average, more academically able and motivated and who might have earned well by other routes, so the degree's own causal contribution to the gap is smaller than the raw number implies. The within-field variation is enormous, too: many non-STEM graduates out-earn many STEM graduates depending on the institution, the individual and the labour market they enter, which means discipline is one factor among several — cost, institution, personal aptitude, local economy — rather than the master variable the position makes it. The tourism example also overlooks that plenty of vocational and applied fields deliver good outcomes. So 'it depends on the discipline' is true but too narrow: it captures one of the things 'it depends' on while presenting it as the whole answer.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] The 'STEM earns three times more' figure conflates correlation with causation — high-earning fields select for abler, more motivated students who might earn well anyway — so the degree's causal contribution is smaller than the raw gap. [Rejecting P1] Worth is not only financial and varies enormously within a field by institution, individual and labour market, so discipline is one factor among several, not the sole determinant of whether college is worth it.