Is college education worth it?

The value of college education depends on the institution

Question: Is college education worth it?
Position‹2 of 3›: Whether college education is worth it depends
Argument1 of 3›: The value of college education depends on the institution

Not all college degrees from every university are worth the cost.

The argument

The value of a university degree depends on the institution awarding the degree. A degree from Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard or MIT is worth the high cost of obtaining them because the best-paid jobs are often given to graduates from these universities. On the other hand, a degree from an unimpressive higher education institution will lead to fewer employment opportunities and may not be worth the large costs. Considering roughly 16% of graduates have a debt to income rate of over 20% from their student loans alone, the costs of college are potentially crippling should they not pay off in terms of one's career.

Context

Degrees from different higher education institutions are not all equal in value. Some institutions provide degrees that are worth the cost. Others do not.

Premises

[P1]Degrees from elite institutions like Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, or MIT open doors to the best-paid jobs, justifying their high cost. [P2] Degrees from less prestigious institutions yield fewer employment opportunities and may not offset the potentially crippling student debt they incur. [C] Therefore, whether a college education is worth it depends on the institution awarding the degree.

Counter-arguments

Pinning value to institutional prestige mistakes the decisive variable. Outcomes depend far more on field of study, individual effort and career path than on the name on the diploma: graduates of ordinary universities in high-demand fields such as engineering, computing or nursing routinely out-earn graduates of elite institutions in low-return majors. Prestige correlates with the students a school admits as much as with what it adds. So while whether college is worth it may indeed depend, it depends on the subject and the student far more than on the institution the argument singles out.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The return on a degree is driven chiefly by field of study and individual factors, not by institutional prestige, so a degree from a non-elite school can be highly worthwhile.