Going to a liberal arts college is usually an expensive way to get a bachelor’s degree. With students more mindful of high tuition, many liberal arts colleges are seeing enrollment drop—and some are closing altogether. The schools’ defenders argue that their small class sizes and well-rounded array of courses provide students with a strong foundation on which to build their future careers, and that’s worth more than worth the price of tuition.
Data on colleges’ return on investment (ROI) from the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, my former employer, allows us to investigate whether a liberal arts education is worth the cost. The ROI data report how much the typical student can expect to increase her earnings by earning a particular college degree, after accounting for the cost of attendance and the risk of dropping out.
The data include estimates of ROI for nearly 27,000 bachelor’s degree programs at roughly 1,200 colleges and universities. I compare degrees offered at liberal arts colleges (as defined by the Carnegie Classification) to all other bachelor’s degrees.
Read more at AEI.
