In an unusual paradox, it seems like there are huge college education cost bubbles in the United States that makes me question whether semi-known colleges are worth the costs?

I think college costs are a paradox in the fact that most of the information that they teach can be found on the internet for free and to top that, then information that most college teach is practically obsolete in contrast the knowledge needed to be successful in today’s business environment.  In the not too recent past, if you had a question about a particular and sometimes complex subject matter, you would have to hopefully know a local expert knowledgeable in such matter, and those with such knowledge could charge a decent fee for such information.  Today, most of the frugal and cost aware among us google our questions for a quick and mostly precise answer that often make the need for local knowledge experts much less valuable.  Not every topic, but a good percentage of them.

Learning Finances

So that makes me question whether the high costs of some semi-known colleges are really worth the cost?  Using the site at Money.cnn.com, I check some of the “highly ranked” colleges in my local state, then compared them to the cost of going to Harvard.  I was shocked to find that they were comparable in costs and often just 5k less in price than my local colleges in my mid-eastern state.  Now to me, the price of Harvard would be worth the cost, but the semi-known colleges in my state do not seem to be worth the costs to me… well because they are semi-known only to my state primarily.  Why pay Harvard prices for a college that is not well-known, especially outside of the state I live in?

So what would be more reasonable?  I personally think going to one of the better public colleges would make more sense.  Those big public colleges everybody knows, even outside of the state the reside and they are much more affordable!  Usually the education is just as good and the costs are usually half the price of the semi-known private colleges that I looked into.

Here is the real shocker, most of the people work in a position that they didn’t even major in while in college, check out this post story if you don’t believe me:  College Major not my job nor what I do.  So again, I have to wonder if expensive, mostly unknown colleges are worth it if they aren’t known and you don’t even get a job in that major that you studied while in college?

While I think going to college has value, I would approach it thinking of value received from going, rather than just going to the most expensive college you can afford.

Bests,

Don