An Examination into the Value of a College Degree

About six years ago, I received a bachelor's degree in Economics and those four years of schooling finally paid off. As I speak to friends and colleagues about the value of their degree, I am more and more convinced that the value isn't there. As I look at the numbers, when you account for time, money, and actual knowledge gain, I see a much better structure of education blatantly obvious but only having a significant presence in one sector: coding bootcamps.

The Numbers

My 4 year degree required me to complete 120 credit hours of coursework. An average 3 credit class was either Monday-Wednesday-Friday for 50 minutes or Tuesday-Thursday for 75 minutes for a total of 150 minutes a week. That puts the average class at 2250 minutes total, or 37.5 hours. So to receive my required 120 credits, I would have to do 40 average classes at 37.5 hours or a total of 1500 hours in a classroom for a 4 year degree.

Compare that to a coding bootcamp like Dev Bootcamp. They advertise a 19 week immersion program with up to 80 hours a week of coursework. This gives students a total of 1200 hours of coursework completed in about 4 months.

Digging deeper into the numbers, only about half of my courses actually involved economics or a field where economics could be applied. This cuts my relevant classroom hours to about 750 hours of studying economics related fields.

Costs

The average cost of in-state tuition for the 2015-2016 school year was $9,410 per year for a total of $37,640 for the average 4 year degree. Dev Bootcamp charges $12,000-$14,000 depending on location for their coding classes.

Per hour costs are as follows:

4 year degree: $50.19 per hour
Coding Bootcamp: $11.67 per hour

These are simply the costs of education and do not account for the cost of housing for 4 years vs 4 months or the fact that coding bootcamp attendees can start working almost 3 years sooner.

Conclusion

These are raw numbers and there are many other things to consider when making the decision on college. How many jobs would recognize a coding bootcamp certification versus a degree from an accredited college? However, looking at these numbers quickly leads me to believe this model needs to be the future of education. It solves the issue of massive student debt, improves the economy by creating productive contributors sooner, and actually prepares students better by offering more time focused on intended field of study.

I plan on continuing research, interviewing job recruiters and app academy attendees to get a comparison of quality of work and preparation.