Making money
Getting a college degree still pays off for most
students, said Josh Mitchell in The Wall Street
Journal, but it is no longer a sure route to
higher salaries and greater wealth. The num-
bers still favor higher education: In recent
years, “Americans with a bachelor’s degree
earned an average of $77,239, nearly $32,000
more than the average of workers with only a
high-school diploma.” However, students who
borrowed now leave college with more than
$30,000 in debt. And even with higher sala-
ries, significant numbers of college graduates
are struggling to build the wealth of previous
generations. For black and Hispanic students,
“there is little to no wealth advantage” from going to college at
all, “splitting graduates more widely into haves and have-nots.”
Meanwhile, the tight labor market has employers relaxing educa-
tion requirements, said Conor Sen in Bloomberg.com, so millions
of people are getting paid more “without having to spend years
and tens of thousands of dollars on a degree that employers only
‘require’ when they have leverage over workers.”There are still colleges that offer plenty of bang for your buck,
said Kaitlin Pitsker in Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. We ranked
schools that “meet our definition of value: a high-quality educa-
tion at an affordable price.” To really judge value, you often need
to look past the sticker price. The University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill tops our list of public universities for the 18th straight
time. It boasts an 84 percent graduation rate; for students whoqualify for need-based aid, the in-state tu-
ition averages $4,905. At Yale University,
half of students receive need-based financial
aid that cuts the $71,000 tuition down by
an average of 75 percent. For the college
that “pays off the most,” we look to Stan-
ford, said Abigail Hess in CNBC.com. Aid
there is available to families with incomes
as high as $250,000 a year; for students
from families making less than $75,000
per year the annual cost—including room
and board—averages $4,061. Meanwhile,
the starting salary for Stanford grads is
$109,800. Some of the biggest salary ad-
vantages at top schools come at midcareer points, 10 years out
of school. A number of colleges, including Georgia Tech, boast
midcareer salaries that average over $130,000.Those arguing that college isn’t properly preparing young gradu-
ates for work miss the point of a liberal-arts degree, said Erik
Gross in WashingtonExaminer.com. It teaches skills “such
as critical thinking, written and verbal communication, inter-
cultural fluency, interpersonal skills,” and more. Liberal arts
graduates might find themselves “better equipped for the rapidly
changing job market,” in which Millennials change occupations
every few years. What’s more, humanities and social sciences
are generally cheaper to teach than STEM classes. Investing in
liberal arts programs “can save money for colleges, while cutting
costs and discounting tuition” for students.College: Still worth it if you choose wisely
BUSINESS 33
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Stanford: New grads earn $109,800.The downsides of early retirement
Retiring at age 34 has been an enjoyable
experience, but there are a few things I’d do
differently, said Sam Dogen in CNBC.com.
I quit my job with $3 million, generating
roughly $80,000 in investment income per
year. But one downside is that retiring early
made me “excessively risk-averse,” and I’ve
paid the price. If I’d waited, I might have had
the “financial confidence to buy more real
estate in 2012, right before prices began to
take off.” My wife and I also waited to have
a child. “In retrospect, I would have preferred
to be a first-time parent in my early 30s,” and
I missed out on my firm’s incredibly gener-
ous parental leave benefits—we had to pay
$1,700 a month in health-care premiums on
our own.Eleven kids with an odd superpower
“The fate of the world’s largest exchange-
traded fund rests on the health of a group
of 20-somethings,” said Rachel Evans in
Bloomberg.com. SPY, the first ETF in the U.S.,
was organized as a trust when it was estab-
lished in 1993—an unusual structure that al-
lowed its creators to set up “units” that traded
much like shares in a company. However, an
arcane rule required the trust fund to have aspecified termination date. The founders chose
to peg it to the life spans of 11 “ordinary kids”
born between May 1990 and January 1993.
As a result, “SPY as we know it will cease
to be on Jan. 22, 2118, or 20 years ‘after the
death of the last survivor of the 11 persons’—
whichever occurs first.” At least eight of the
11 kids had ties to the Amer i can Stock Ex-
change, which structured the ETF, but none
were aware of their role in investing history.On ‘vacation,’ still at work
“Too often, employees are made to feel like
there’s no good time for them to get away,”
said Alison Green in Slate.com. This is ridicu-
lous. “When paid vacation time is part of
your benefits, letting some of it go unused is
like taking money out of your paycheck and
handing it back to your employer.” Still, some
offices even expect people to “remain avail-
able” to work while they’re away. “Many
states don’t require companies to pay out
remaining vacation time when an employee
leaves—making the time off that they earned
truly use-it-or-lose-it.” Employers need to
treat vacation time like any other compensa-
tion they owe employees. And employees
“need to be better about insisting on taking
the time off”—and I mean truly off.What the experts say
In partnership with the National Park
Service, the Wolf Trap Foundation for the
Performing Arts (wolftrap.org) organizes
dozens of performances in Virginia’s Wolf
Trap National Park. Known for its Wolf
Trap Opera program, Wolf Trap has long
provided emerging professional singers
with one of the country’s most visible
outlets. Wolf Trap Opera selects its artists
from among the best classical vocalists in
the country through a national series of
auditions. It chooses operas— including
many that are rarely performed—to
show case the singers’ talents. Wolf Trap
also provides a summer home for the
National Symphony Orchestra, providing
space for performances as well as collab-
orations with pop artists. Wolf Trap also
runs arts education programs nationally,
from preschool- to high school–level
classes, with master teachers.Charity of the week
Each charity we feature has earned a
four-star overall rating from Charity
Navigator, which rates not-for-profit
organizations on the strength of their
finances, their governance practices,
and the transparency of their operations.
Four stars is the group’s highest rating.