College ROI calculator by major: what a degree costs vs. what graduates earn
Choose a college and a program, or start from a major and compare schools. Every number comes from College Scorecard data for that specific school and field, with the assumptions written out.
Choose a college and program, or a major and school, to see results.
- Total net cost
- Median earnings, 4 years after completing
- Half of graduates earned more and half less. In 2024 dollars.
- Median earnings of people aged 25 to 34 whose highest education is high school (American Community Survey, 2024 dollars).
- Earnings premium per year
- Payback: net cost only
- Total net cost ÷ yearly premium. The site's standard definition.
- Payback: including income forgone
- Median program debt
- Federal Stafford and Grad PLUS loans of graduates who borrowed at this school. Not all students borrow.
- Monthly payment, 10-year plan
- Scorecard's standard-plan estimate for that debt, from the data.
- Loan payments vs. earnings
- Yearly payments (monthly × 12) as a share of median earnings 4 years after completing.
Yearly earnings compared
Cost compared with the yearly premium
What this means
Read with care
Earnings cover graduates who received federal aid, were working and were not enrolled four years after completing. Debt covers federal-loan borrowers at this school. Completion years are pooled by the Department of Education and vary by program; see the methodology.
The calculation leaves out interest, taxes, changes in aid, graduate school, and what students who did not finish earn.
What this calculator does
Most return-on-investment tools ask you to type in tuition, salary and debt yourself, or give one average for a whole college. This calculator starts from the U.S. Department of Education's College Scorecard instead. For a given college and field of study, it already holds the average net price, the median earnings of graduates four years after they finished, the median federal-loan debt of borrowers in that program, and a high-school-graduate earnings benchmark for the school's state.
From those figures it works out the total net cost, the yearly earnings premium over a high-school graduate, a payback period in two clearly labelled versions, and the monthly loan payment compared with earnings. You can change the years to finish and the yearly net price to match your own situation.
How we calculate
Total net cost = yearly net price × years to finish. The default is 4 years for a bachelor's program and 2 for an associate program.
Earnings premium = median earnings 4 years after completing − median earnings of high-school graduates aged 25 to 34 in the school's state. Both figures are in 2024 dollars, so the difference is meaningful. A premium below $2,000 is treated as too small to divide by, and no payback is shown.
Payback, net cost only = total net cost ÷ premium. This is the definition used on every college profile on this site.
Payback, including income forgone = (total net cost + high-school-graduate earnings × years to finish) ÷ premium. It adds what a full-time worker with only a high-school diploma would have earned while you studied. It is always longer, and we show both so neither hides the other.
Monthly payment and debt are Scorecard figures, not calculations. The payment is Scorecard's estimate for a standard 10-year plan. The share of earnings is the yearly payment divided by median earnings four years after completing.
How to read the results
Treat the earnings number as the middle of a distribution. Half of the graduates in the figure earned more and half earned less, and the national 25th and 75th percentiles show how wide the spread is across programs in the same field.
Check the sample size. The figure covers graduates who received federal aid, were working and were not enrolled four years after finishing. Programs with fewer than 30 graduates are flagged as small samples, and every value carries privacy noise.
A short payback period does not mean a program is a good fit for a particular person, and a long one does not mean the opposite. The calculation ignores interest, taxes, changes in aid, non-financial value, and people who did not graduate.
Limits of the data
The Scorecard shows earnings only for programs large enough to protect privacy, so many fields at many colleges are missing. Net price is an average across students who received aid, and your own price may differ. Earnings are measured for past graduates in particular years, and the labor market changes. Self-employment losses, untaxed income and graduates who returned to school are not captured.
Debt counts only federal loans. Private loans and parent loans are not included, and neither are graduates who borrowed nothing, so the figure is not the debt of a typical student.
Worked example
Alabama A & M University (AL) reports an average net price of $17,621 a year. For Computer and Information Sciences, General, graduates earned a median of $88,490 four years after completing (n = 39), while high-school graduates in AL earned $32,204. The premium is $56,286 a year.
Over 4 years the total net cost is $70,484, so payback on net cost alone is 1.3 years. Adding $128,816 of income forgone (4 × $32,204) makes the cost $199,300 and the payback 3.5 years. The median debt is $30,100, a payment of about $319 a month, or 4.3% of those earnings. This is an illustration of the arithmetic using real Scorecard numbers, not a recommendation about this school or field.
Frequently asked questions
Where do the numbers come from?
From the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard field-of-study and institution files, release June 2026. Net price and the state high-school benchmark come from the institution data, and earnings, debt and sample size come from the program data.
Why are there two payback numbers?
The first uses only what the degree costs. The second also counts earnings you give up while studying instead of working. The second is more complete and always longer, so we show both.
Why is my college or major missing?
The Scorecard publishes earnings only when enough graduates are in the group. Many small programs, new programs and some colleges have no published figure.
Does this predict my own salary?
No. It describes what past graduates of the program earned. Your result depends on your job, location, experience and the labor market.
Why do earnings use 2024 dollars?
The Department adjusts earnings 4 years after completing, and the high-school benchmark, to 2024 dollars, so subtracting one from the other compares like with like. We never use the entry-cohort 10-year earnings measure here because it is in 2022 dollars.
Are the majors shown in Spanish?
The calculator shows the official English titles of the Classification of Instructional Programs, because the Scorecard publishes them only in English.