**Data source:** CollegeNPV ROI estimates, which leverage Department of Education data to estimate the present value of degree programs taking into account graduation rates, expected income, debt obligations and contrasting it with the expected value of entering the workforce immediately out of high school. If interested, you can view my full rankings and more information on my methodology here: [View CollegeNPV ROI Rankings](https://www.collegenpv.com/)
The size of each rectangle represents the number of programs (larger rectangles are more popular fields of study), and color indicates the median ROI of programs ranked in the respective field.
**Tools:** D3.js & Powerpoint
Saw math and had a heart attack. Then went to the site and realized my concentration is the $529.6k square lol.
Truth is you can do anything you set your mind on. These boxes represent human boundaries that do not exist in nature
Value here is reduced in meaning to money.
Chem grads be cooking. CSE grads be selling
It’s sad to see all the fields our society needs someone to work in, but refuses to reward them for. I know people on these posts love to yuk it up about the “useless” majors but some of the largest negatives here are for teachers, social workers, and psychologists. I don’t think the free market is serving human flourishing here.
Every time I see something connecting earnings with education/careers, engineering is always the top.
I understand that education is an “investment” but people should be able to pursue education in things that make them a better human being and not just for $$$$$$. It makes me sad.
It’s embarrassing that we have don’t have more people going into Engineering. Future of America is grim
What in the goddamn AI art is happening on this fucking page?
Lifetime me ROI. I believe it. Before doing a chem degree I was making 53k as a construction worker inflation adjusted and 78k as a chemist. Subtracting four years of school plus expenses, its probably right but I wonder if it considers write offs, I for example found the chemical industry shaky and got a trade which pays more and has better job stability instead.
The price of student loans invested into sp500 over your life would dwarf all these numbers.
Does this only put into consideration those who started at a 4 year university and tuition.
I started at a community college with no debt. Now I’m enrolling with 2 universities at the same time through cross enrollment.
Okay I doubt marketing has a higher ROI than Business Administration.
What does the ROI represent anyway? I thought the usual formula for ROI was (return – cost)/cost
Does statistics fall under math?
Always nice to have a skill!
I gotta say. This has to be one of my least favorite visuals. There are so many other ways to present this data and not have it look so messy.
Okay seriously what’s the source for this claim? I’m sorry I doubt people with marketing degrees make more than those with Business Administration degrees.
Reminds me that Geography is the most profitable major by a mile at UNC. Michael Jordan majored in geography.
You’re using median earnings data from DoEd’s College Scorecard, correct?
Keep in mind that’s limited to “[individuals who received federal financial aid](https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/data/glossary/) during their studies and completed an award at the indicated field of study.” Depending on the institution, we could be talking about a small minority of graduates.
For example, my alma mater disproportionately attracts students from well-off families while simultaneously having one of the country’s most generous financial aid programs, so DoEd is reporting only 3% federal loan borrowers and 20% Pell Grant recipients as shares of all undergraduate students.
I have several issues with this.
First of all, many of the boxes didn’t even display the associated label without clicking on it. It makes small boxes basically meaningless. And, you can barely see the labels in the screenshot since the text is so small on the small boxes that do have labels.
Second, viewing the site on Mobile is terrible, like completely illegible.
Finally, it seems like this is not complete data – where is law, for example?
This chart was posted elsewhere and my primary gripe is the same.
It is very misleading because most of the colleges payoffs are driven by graduation rates, not debt/tuition/earnings/employment.
Now obviously graduation rates should be considered when choosing a school, but the heatmap is not returns given a degree it’s potential returns given acceptance to a university. It’s sounds like a nit pick but it’s not. If I went to the worst payoff school, but actually graduated, the heat map does nothing to tell you how I am doing at this point.
The heat map is not degree ROI, it’s the cost of dropping out at various schools.
Some fields do a better job than others of regulating things on the “Supply” side. The medical field tightly controls the number of students that are permitted to limit the number of doctors and keep the salaries high.
Systems Engineer here for Cloud and SaaS Solutions with a degree in AS in Computer Information Systems.. Within 6 years I was making over 100k and already paid off all my student loans. Now I make 150k a year only working 25-30 hours a week on W2.
Will always recommend a STEM degree and Stem career.
But then when you graduate it’s hard to find a job for a CS degree because now it’s saturated
Respect the effort to create this but I feel like it’s trying to do too much. It’s overwhelming to look at.
fuck me for wanting to know what philosophy looks like i guess
28 comments
**Interactive version available here:** [Interactive Heatmap](https://www.collegenpv.com/collegeroiheatmap)
**Data source:** CollegeNPV ROI estimates, which leverage Department of Education data to estimate the present value of degree programs taking into account graduation rates, expected income, debt obligations and contrasting it with the expected value of entering the workforce immediately out of high school. If interested, you can view my full rankings and more information on my methodology here: [View CollegeNPV ROI Rankings](https://www.collegenpv.com/)
The size of each rectangle represents the number of programs (larger rectangles are more popular fields of study), and color indicates the median ROI of programs ranked in the respective field.
**Tools:** D3.js & Powerpoint
Saw math and had a heart attack. Then went to the site and realized my concentration is the $529.6k square lol.
Truth is you can do anything you set your mind on. These boxes represent human boundaries that do not exist in nature
Value here is reduced in meaning to money.
Chem grads be cooking. CSE grads be selling
It’s sad to see all the fields our society needs someone to work in, but refuses to reward them for. I know people on these posts love to yuk it up about the “useless” majors but some of the largest negatives here are for teachers, social workers, and psychologists. I don’t think the free market is serving human flourishing here.
Every time I see something connecting earnings with education/careers, engineering is always the top.
I understand that education is an “investment” but people should be able to pursue education in things that make them a better human being and not just for $$$$$$. It makes me sad.
It’s embarrassing that we have don’t have more people going into Engineering. Future of America is grim
What in the goddamn AI art is happening on this fucking page?
https://www.collegenpv.com/collegerankings?query=&page=1&sort=rank_desc
Lifetime me ROI. I believe it. Before doing a chem degree I was making 53k as a construction worker inflation adjusted and 78k as a chemist. Subtracting four years of school plus expenses, its probably right but I wonder if it considers write offs, I for example found the chemical industry shaky and got a trade which pays more and has better job stability instead.
The price of student loans invested into sp500 over your life would dwarf all these numbers.
Does this only put into consideration those who started at a 4 year university and tuition.
I started at a community college with no debt. Now I’m enrolling with 2 universities at the same time through cross enrollment.
Okay I doubt marketing has a higher ROI than Business Administration.
What does the ROI represent anyway? I thought the usual formula for ROI was (return – cost)/cost
Does statistics fall under math?
Always nice to have a skill!
I gotta say. This has to be one of my least favorite visuals. There are so many other ways to present this data and not have it look so messy.
Okay seriously what’s the source for this claim? I’m sorry I doubt people with marketing degrees make more than those with Business Administration degrees.
Reminds me that Geography is the most profitable major by a mile at UNC. Michael Jordan majored in geography.
You’re using median earnings data from DoEd’s College Scorecard, correct?
Keep in mind that’s limited to “[individuals who received federal financial aid](https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/data/glossary/) during their studies and completed an award at the indicated field of study.” Depending on the institution, we could be talking about a small minority of graduates.
For example, my alma mater disproportionately attracts students from well-off families while simultaneously having one of the country’s most generous financial aid programs, so DoEd is reporting only 3% federal loan borrowers and 20% Pell Grant recipients as shares of all undergraduate students.
I have several issues with this.
First of all, many of the boxes didn’t even display the associated label without clicking on it. It makes small boxes basically meaningless. And, you can barely see the labels in the screenshot since the text is so small on the small boxes that do have labels.
Second, viewing the site on Mobile is terrible, like completely illegible.
Finally, it seems like this is not complete data – where is law, for example?
This chart was posted elsewhere and my primary gripe is the same.
It is very misleading because most of the colleges payoffs are driven by graduation rates, not debt/tuition/earnings/employment.
Now obviously graduation rates should be considered when choosing a school, but the heatmap is not returns given a degree it’s potential returns given acceptance to a university. It’s sounds like a nit pick but it’s not. If I went to the worst payoff school, but actually graduated, the heat map does nothing to tell you how I am doing at this point.
The heat map is not degree ROI, it’s the cost of dropping out at various schools.
Some fields do a better job than others of regulating things on the “Supply” side. The medical field tightly controls the number of students that are permitted to limit the number of doctors and keep the salaries high.
Systems Engineer here for Cloud and SaaS Solutions with a degree in AS in Computer Information Systems.. Within 6 years I was making over 100k and already paid off all my student loans. Now I make 150k a year only working 25-30 hours a week on W2.
Will always recommend a STEM degree and Stem career.
But then when you graduate it’s hard to find a job for a CS degree because now it’s saturated
Respect the effort to create this but I feel like it’s trying to do too much. It’s overwhelming to look at.
fuck me for wanting to know what philosophy looks like i guess