College ROI Calculator
Compare the lifetime financial return of four education paths — 4-year university, community-college transfer, trade school, and graduate degree.
Questions this answers — what you can actually figure out
- Is a 4-year degree worth it given my expected salary and loans?
- Would community college first save me more than it costs in earnings?
- When does my degree finally pay off compared to skipping it?
- Is grad school a smart move, or am I over-borrowing?
- How does trade school stack up against a 4-year degree for me?
- What loan amount turns this from a win into a wash?
Education path
Choose your pathEach path pre-populates realistic cost and salary defaults. Use the major preset to set salary benchmarks, then fine-tune to your school and market.
2+2 community college transferTwo years at community college followed by two years at a 4-year institution — same final credential at a fraction of the cost, often the highest-ROI path.
Which path are you evaluating?
Field of study / major preset
Cost of attendance
Tuition and feesUse your actual financial-aid award letter, not the sticker price. Grants reduce net cost dollar for dollar.
Grants and scholarshipsThe federal average grant is about $7,000–$9,000/yr at public universities. This is the most impactful input in the cost model.
Years to complete5-year completion is common — the extra year adds tuition AND another year of forgone earnings.
Student loans
Total loans borrowedFederal undergraduate loan rates run around 6.5%. Always exhaust federal options before private loans — private rates and terms vary widely.
Repayment termStandard federal repayment is 10 years. Longer terms reduce monthly payments but significantly increase total interest paid.
Career outcomes
Starting salary with degreeThe major presets use BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook data. Adjust for your specific role, employer type, and metro area.
Salary growth rateCompounds annually over your entire career. Even a 1% difference in growth produces dramatically different lifetime earnings over 35–40 years.
No-degree salaryThe baseline comparison. Entry-level roles without a degree typically start between $30,000 and $45,000 depending on field and location.
College ROI Calculator — Results Summary
Lifetime net ROI
—
lifetime earnings premium minus all costs
Calculating…
Total cost of attendance
net after grants
—
Total loan cost
principal + interest
—
Opportunity cost
forgone earnings in school
—
Monthly loan payment
after graduation
—
Debt-to-income ratio
annual payment vs starting salary
—
Break-even age
when degree path overtakes
—
Lifetime earnings premium
career earnings, degree vs none
Return on investment
net ROI as % of total cost
—
Loan as % of take-home
monthly payment burden
—
Path comparison — lifetime net ROI
How other paths are calculated
The active path uses your exact slider inputs. The other three paths always use their own fixed cost and loan defaults shown below — changing the tuition, room, or loan sliders does NOT affect the comparison bars. Only salary, no-degree salary, and career-length sliders affect all four bars.
Salary scaling
Comparison-path salaries are scaled from your active-path salary using fixed ratios: 2+2 Community = 88% of university, Trade School = 75% of university, Grad School = 125% of university. These reflect typical wage premiums by credential level.
Cost defaults (non-active paths)
4-yr University: $28k tuition, $12k room, $8k grants, $40k loans @ 6.5%. 2+2 Community: $6k tuition, $5k room, $3k grants, $12k loans @ 5.5%. Trade School: $14k tuition, $0 room, $2k grants, $12k loans @ 6.0%. Grad School: $38k tuition, $14k room, $10k grants, $65k loans @ 7.0%.
No-degree baseline
All four paths use the same no-degree salary and growth rate from your sliders. This ensures the comparison is fair — the counterfactual (what you would earn without any additional education) does not change across paths.
Chart view
With degree (net of costs & loan)
Without degree
Community college path
Trade school path
Frequently asked questions
The premium is the gross difference in career earnings between the degree path and the no-degree path, compounded over your working years. A 3.5% vs 2.0% growth gap applied to a $30,000 starting salary gap turns into a multi-million-dollar difference over 38 years — even before subtracting costs. The headline Net ROI already nets out tuition, opportunity cost, and loan interest, so use that number, not the premium alone, to judge whether the path is worth it.
3–4% is defensible for most fields over a 30-year horizon — that combines roughly 2% inflation with 1–2% real wage growth from promotions and tenure. CS / engineering and finance often run 4–5% early-career; education and most non-profit work runs closer to 2–3%. The default of 3.5% with-degree vs 2.0% no-degree is conservative-to-typical; the gap is what drives the model, not the absolute rates.
Break-even is the year when the with-degree path's cumulative cashflow (net of school costs and loan payments) overtakes the no-degree path's cumulative earnings. If your with-degree salary is barely above the no-degree salary, or loans are large, the lines may never cross within a working lifetime. That is the model telling you the math doesn't work at these inputs — the practical fix is usually to lower tuition, reduce loans, or revisit whether the salary projection is realistic for your major and market.
It's the salary you could realistically earn today in your area without a 4-year degree — entry-level admin, retail management, skilled service, sales, hospitality, or trade-adjacent work. National median for high-school-only workers runs about $40,000 (BLS, 2023). Use the local rate you'd actually take if you didn't go to school. This is the most important counterfactual input — if you set it too low, every degree looks brilliant.
A lot, deliberately. It does not model: taxes (premiums are pre-tax dollars), employer benefits (health, 401(k) match, RSUs), investment of saved money (a low-cost path leaves you with capital that can compound), graduate-school detours after the first degree, unemployment spells, major-specific completion rates, geographic moves, non-financial returns (network, signaling, personal growth), or price inflation in tuition during your study years. Treat the headline as a defensible order-of-magnitude estimate, not a guarantee.
The comparison shows what each path typically costs using benchmark defaults — not what you'd pay if you took your active path's tuition and applied it to community college. If we let your tuition slider drive all four bars, switching to a $50k tuition would also make trade school look like a $50k path, which isn't a meaningful comparison. The salary, no-degree salary, and career-length sliders DO flow through to all four paths because those are about you, not the institution.
Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook entry-level medians for representative roles in each field, rounded to a defensible round number. They're starting points, not destinations — adjust based on your specific role, the employer (FAANG vs regional firm), and the metro you'll work in. NYC, SF, Seattle, and Boston run 20–40% above the national median for most fields; rural and lower-cost metros run below.
Disclaimer: This calculator is for educational and informational purposes only. Results are estimates based on the inputs you provide and should not be used as the sole basis for education or financial decisions. Actual earnings vary significantly by institution, location, employer, individual performance, and economic conditions. Opportunity cost assumes continuous employment without a degree. Loan calculations assume standard amortization. Always consult a qualified professional for decisions involving investments, taxes, or financial planning.
Sources: BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook for salary benchmarks. College Board Annual Survey for cost-of-attendance averages. Federal Reserve research on education wage premiums. National Center for Education Statistics for completion rates and time-to-degree data.
Sources: BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook for salary benchmarks. College Board Annual Survey for cost-of-attendance averages. Federal Reserve research on education wage premiums. National Center for Education Statistics for completion rates and time-to-degree data.
Marty Math by MartinGoetzinger.com
Free calculators and tools to help you run the numbers on the decisions that matter, from mortgages and investments to home projects and career moves.
Free calculators and tools to help you run the numbers on the decisions that matter, from mortgages and investments to home projects and career moves.
