Education Return on Investment: Are Students Picking the Best ROI College Majors?

Abstract

College education has long been defined as the best pathway to financial stability. College costs have increase year over year beating the rate of inflation. Today, college tuition represents a sizable investment of a person's wealth. In this paper we explore return on investment calculations via a formulated Net Present Value between Liberal Arts and STEM schools. STEM schools overall provide a higher NPV so we would assume more students would be choosing STEM schools and declaring STEM majors. A deeper dive suggests correlation between field of study and their starting salaries is what guides student's choice. It is not simply Liberal Arts versus STEM return on investment.