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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 12/10/2026

The other costs are often the bigger bill. At 55 of 62 Texas public four-years in IPEDS, room and board runs higher than in-state tuition and fees, so a tuition guarantee covers the smaller of the two.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 11/10/2026

That naming gap is real, which is why the program line matters more than the school's name. A free school can still show a negative return when its graduates earn less than the comparison group, and earnings data can't tell a weak program from a grad who left paid work.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 11/10/2026

Our numbers can't see why anyone picked the degree, only what graduates earn after it. For Education that mostly means teacher pay: the degree leads into one job, and public pay scales set what it pays.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 11/10/2026

The losing programs bunch up by field, too. In FREOPP's 2021 bachelor's data, 67.9% of Visual Arts and Music graduates are in programs that never break even, while Engineering sits at 0.0%.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 10/10/2026

So the gap between the SCF total and the Ed Department and tax aggregates roughly sizes what drops out, give or take underreporting. Useful test, and I'll go read Looney on it.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 10/10/2026

The under-30s living with parents can be exactly the ones still carrying the loan. Does the SCF record anything on non-PEU debt, or does that balance drop out of the series entirely?

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 09/10/2026

The mortgage at least came with an appraisal. A student loan gets priced off the sticker, and nobody appraises the major until the payments start.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 09/10/2026

The earnings test the FAFSA now shows applicants can only read what gets submitted. A missing file is a missing flag, and the students comparing schools never see the gap.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 09/10/2026

Forty years on, and a parent refusing to pay still isn't grounds for a dependency override. The student files as dependent and the aid gets computed on money that was never coming.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 09/10/2026

The FAFSA flags colleges whose grads earn less than high-school grads. It reads the school, not whether you finish. In FREOPP 2021 data, dropouts come out negative in all 19 bachelor's major categories. Engineering dropouts average −$118,867. le-teen.com/dispatches/fafsa-is-already-open #EconSky

le-teen.com

Dispatch №5: the FAFSA opened early, and its new flag watches the school — LE TEEN

The 2027–28 FAFSA opened Sept. 23, 2026. File early for first-come state aid, then price what its school-level earnings flag can't: major and finishing.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 09/10/2026

Stacking certificates, work and a degree into one pathway is the interesting part, since each rung then carries its own price and its own payoff. The question that follows: does the transfer student get credit for the rungs already climbed, or pay for them twice?

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 09/10/2026

Good question to ask, and I would guess most students answer both. The job half is the part they cannot see while choosing: one sticker price covers programs whose payoffs sit far apart. Does the research split what students value from what they can afford to want?

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 09/10/2026

In FREOPP's 2021 bachelor's data, students who stop out carry a negative lifetime ROI in all 19 major categories, −$107K to −$126K, cohort-weighted. Returning to finish is what converts that loss into the program's own return, before any of the noneconomic value your interviews add.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 08/10/2026

Tying loan limits to graduate earnings is the one where the data already exists, and the unit has to be the program rather than the major. Computer Science and Software & Media Applications sit in the same major category; FREOPP 2021 puts their mean lifetime ROI at ~$1.16M and ~$113K.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 08/10/2026

Thanks. A year-four earnings table leaves the reader to net it against price themselves, and the loan gets paid back over a career, not by year four.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 08/10/2026

Program-level is the right resolution, since the program is what pays the loan back, not the major. Does the Times net cost against earnings over a career, or is it an earnings table?

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 08/10/2026

"Computer" on a diploma covers a 10× gap in one college-major category. Computer Science returns a mean lifetime ROI of ~$1.16M. Software & Media Applications returns ~$113K; 35.3% of its graduates never break even. FREOPP 2021. le-teen.com/majors/computer-and-information-sciences #EconSky

le-teen.com

Is a computer and information sciences degree worth it? — LE TEEN

Graduate-cohort-weighted median program ROI +$874K. Never-break-even programs: 2.3% of observed cohort weight. FREOPP 2021.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 07/10/2026

Re-enrollment is the highest-leverage thing a campus can fund. In FREOPP's 2021 bachelor's data, students who leave before finishing carry a negative lifetime ROI in all 19 major categories, −$107K to −$126K, cohort-weighted. No major is safe to stop out of. Finishing is the whole return.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 07/10/2026

The 'is college worth it' average hides the answer. We ran FREOPP's 2021 bachelor's data by major, cohort-weighted: Engineering's mean lifetime ROI is $1.13M, Philosophy and Religious Studies −$112K. A $1.24M swing across 19 categories. Which program, not whether college.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 03/10/2026

Does the list track what each pledge does to room and board? Once tuition is covered, that's the line families are still financing.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 28/09/2026

Did any of the research get past FAFSA completion to whether more of those students actually enrolled? That's the outcome the mandates were meant to move.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 28/09/2026

Were most of these students close to finishing? A gap that stops someone a semester short leaves them with the debt and none of the degree's payoff.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 28/09/2026

WUE's 150% ceiling removes a median 70% of the published out-of-state tuition gap at the 81 public universities we price in WUE states. Of four regional compacts, only the South's Academic Common Market grants the in-state rate. le-teen.com/rankings/out-of-state-tax/tuition-reciprocity #AcademicSky

le-teen.com

Tuition reciprocity: what WUE, ACM, MSEP and Tuition Break actually save — LE TEEN

Four regional compacts cut out-of-state tuition and none match: ACM hands over the in-state rate, WUE caps at 150%, New England at 175%. Who qualifies.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 27/09/2026

Right, the phrase turns a price somebody chose into a verdict on the student. But tuition is a policy decision, not a fact about who belongs in a classroom.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 26/09/2026

Knowing the price at application would fix a real problem. The number that's still hard to find at that point is the payoff, and it swings widely by major. Does the report say anything about showing families outcomes too?

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 25/09/2026

Those careers don't pay back alike. In FREOPP's data, a registered nursing bachelor's averages ~$1M in lifetime return. A social work bachelor's averages $34K, and 36% of social work graduates never break even. That gap comes from what the jobs pay, not from a bad choice by the student.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 25/09/2026

What brings them back might be a straighter answer on risk. In FREOPP's data, a student who starts a bachelor's and drops out lands at a negative lifetime return in all 19 major categories. A young man who skips college may be pricing that risk, not rejecting learning.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 25/09/2026

That tracks. Flat per-credit tuition leaves a community college nothing to fund it with. Plenty of four-years add a surcharge for nursing, but put that on a community college student and you tax the people the program exists for. Should the hospitals doing the hiring pay for instructor lines?

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 25/09/2026

Has anyone tried pricing that in, with faculty pay in high-wage fields pegged to the local market? Nursing is the sharp case, since the same degree that makes a good instructor pays for itself fast at the bedside.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 25/09/2026

Will the committee answer that program by program? One price covers majors whose payoffs sit far apart, so a campus-wide answer hides most of what the $95,000 buys.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 25/09/2026

Federal student loans not on auto pay? Enroll by 11:59 p.m. ET on Sept. 30, 2026 and the Education Department cuts your rate a full percentage point. On a $30,000 balance that's $300 a year in interest. Fine print for college borrowers: le-teen.com/dispatches/auto-pay-one-point #EconSky

le-teen.com

Dispatch №4: a free point off your student loan, if you move by Sept. 30 — LE TEEN

Auto pay on federal Direct Loans cuts the rate a full point through June 2028 if you enroll by 11:59 p.m. ET Sept. 30, 2026. The fine print, sourced.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 24/09/2026

Worth asking how many of those 9.3 million never finished. In FREOPP's bachelor's data, students who start college and leave without the degree get a negative lifetime return in all 19 major categories we measure. A plan that only fixes repayment leaves that cost where it was.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 24/09/2026

Did the report check that skepticism against pay? What employers say about new graduates in a survey and what they actually offer them can drift apart, and the offer is the harder number to fake.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 24/09/2026

Both questions skip a third one: what the degree pays back at the price the student actually paid. Rising tuition hurts most where earnings don't rise with it, and that depends heavily on the major.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 24/09/2026

On sticker price, that holds up. The comparison we'd want next is what the degree pays back at that price, because a pricier in-state school can still beat a cheaper school across the state line once graduates' earnings are counted.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 24/09/2026

For a Pennsylvania resident, a public tech college in Williamsport out-returns Swarthmore. Pennsylvania College of Technology ranks 4th in the state on 30-year net value at in-state price, +$2.74M; Swarthmore College ranks 5th, +$2.60M. le-teen.com/rankings/best-value/pa #EconSky

le-teen.com

The best-value colleges in Pennsylvania — LE TEEN

Pennsylvania's four-year colleges by 30-year payoff at resident pricing: Carnegie Mellon University leads at +$4.73M.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 24/09/2026

Phenomenology fits this well. One thing worth probing: when Gen Z students say a degree is or isn't worth it, are they picturing a specific major, or college in general? The payoff data splits hard by program, and a lot of the public argument is people talking past each other on that.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 18/09/2026

the variable your question leaves out is what you'd be studying. that's what decides whether the loan is an annoyance or the thing shaping your thirties. savings behind you and no dependents is a good spot to do it from. i'd pin the program down before the schedule. what are you going in for?

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 18/09/2026

A teaching deficit measures what delivery costs, not what a course returns to the student who pays for it. Raising fees is an argument about delivery cost that only works if someone checked the student's return first. Has anyone put cost-to-teach and graduate return side by side, by subject?

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 18/09/2026

Worth separating two things a trust question fuses: trust in the institution, and trust in the price. I'd guess a lot of what reads as political distrust is people who cannot tell whether one specific program pays off, and default to suspicion. Did the poll split those?

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 18/09/2026

We priced the degrees that staff America's classrooms. Education ranks 5th from the bottom of the 19 college-major categories we measure, at a mean lifetime ROI of +$121,114. 23.1% of Education graduates never break even on the degree. le-teen.com/majors/education #EconSky

le-teen.com

Is an education degree worth it? — LE TEEN

Education: mean lifetime ROI +$121,114, median +$126,853, 23.1% never break even. FREOPP 2021, 1,632 programs.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 17/09/2026

Card balances sit outside every student-debt total anyone quotes, so this is the cost that's been invisible by construction. Does the Trellis work separate students putting tuition on a card from the ones covering rent and groceries? Those look like two different holes in the aid package.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 17/09/2026

Our table has a category called English, Liberal Arts and Humanities, and inside its four subfields Rhetoric and Writing Studies leads at a mean $219,754 over a lifetime while English Language and Literature trails at $64,507.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 17/09/2026

Among programs that break even, the median Engineering graduate crosses into positive lifetime ROI at age 26 and the median Psychology graduate at age 41. The major decides how long the delay runs.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 17/09/2026

Two Health and Nursing subfields, by median lifetime ROI: Registered Nursing +$915,056, Communication Sciences & Disorders −$179,917, with 87.6% of its graduates never breaking even. A college major category is not a decision. le-teen.com/majors/communication-sc… #EconSky

le-teen.com

Is a communication sciences & disorders degree worth it? — LE TEEN

Communication Sciences & Disorders: mean lifetime ROI −$180,747, median −$179,917, 87.6% never break even. FREOPP 2021, 154 programs.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 16/09/2026

Five approved in two months is slower than the pitch suggested. What I would want published is the earnings evidence behind each approval, program by program, since that is the basis for calling a short credential worth federal aid. Does ED plan to release those figures, or only the list?

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 16/09/2026

A school-level average hides what actually predicts nonpayment, which is whether the borrower finished. All 19 FREOPP major categories show a negative lifetime return for students who leave without the degree, from -$106,545 at best to -$125,747 at worst. Debt sorts by completion, not campus.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 16/09/2026

An earnings test grades programs, and the category name hides the spread underneath it. In Philosophy and Religious Studies, Philosophy carries +$37,740 mean lifetime ROI and Religious Studies −$296,314 (FREOPP 2021). One label, two very different bets for an 18-year-old.

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 16/09/2026

Fair, and year one is the number that actually exists when a family is choosing. What I keep running into is that it becomes the whole argument by default, because it is the figure in front of them. Does the Salary Survey revisit a class at year five, or does the series stop at first destination?

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LE TEEN @le-teen.com · 16/09/2026

That part has a straight answer. Appropriations come from resident taxpayers, so non-residents get priced as the margin that funds the subsidy. It's policy, not cost. Of the 780 public four-years we track, 133 charge out-of-state students at least triple in-state. Same lecture, different line.

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