It’s no secret that college is getting ridiculously expensive–but some are more ridiculously expensive than others, and can leave you with degrees that aren’t worth more than the nice heavy-stock paper that was used for your diploma.
A new survey from PayScale examines the annual tuition rates of every school in the country, and determines a university’s 20-year net return rate to see how much a student might make with a degree from the institution. The results singled out a mix of private and public universities, but their 20-year net return results are equally staggering.
The worst results went to the private, non-profit Shaw University in North Carolina, in which the average return for a student with a four-year degree led to a loss of $121,000. Shaw was followed by Fayetteville State in North Carolina with a net loss of $95,700, Savannah State University in Georgia was next with a net loss of $82,300, and then Bluefield College in Virginia with a net loss of $65,600. The University of North Carolina Asheville checked in with a minus sum of $62,500.
The total loss gets even more expensive if you’re going after a certain degree at a certain university. The highest of the bunch went to graduates with Arts degree from Murray State University in Kentucky. That was represented by a loss of just under $200,000 in the same 20-year period. This was followed by students with Humanities and English degrees from Florida International University (with a loss of $192,000), and Arts students from Eastern Michigan University (with a loss of $187,000).
You can read the full list to see where your current school (and your degree plan) rank in the midst of things–just in case you need to feel even more depressed about going after your Sociology degree.
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