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I would first of all argue that monetary value should not be the primary consideration of deciding to go to college. But fine, let's discuss money. The most glaring weakness of your argument is that it only considers the first few years. I will argue that, over the long haul of a several decades' career, college still pulls ahead financially because:

1. Those social connections? They actually have monetary value. Unless you already come from an extremely well connected background, it's very likely that knowing a few extra people in disparate fields can come in handy for your future career.

2. Without a college degree, you'll sooner or later hit a glass ceiling. I know, I know, it's superficial of people to prefer that guy with a masters degree for promotion to management. But they do it anyway.

3. Last but not least, in college you learn to learn. Most schools these days force you to take a range of classes from history to foreign languages. (Some of these can come in handy on their own, see Steve Jobs' experience with calligraphy.) Learning to adapt to entirely different fields will be quite nice when, ten years from now, that hot new computer skill that's netting you extra cash right now inevitably becomes obsolete.

Let's not mention the fact that there's a bit more to life than raw earning power; such considerations might seem a bit indecent to some of the folks here...

Some of your arguments are going against a straw man:

> do not go to college just to earn more money. You need to have better reasons than that.

> Now, that being said, the reasons I'm attending college instead of dropping out (I did take a year off to work at a YC startup): I value the unique social experience of college

Connections are overrated in SV. As a software engineer it is extremely easy to network, since everyone wants to have coffee with you (cough recruit cough). From my year at a YC startup, I made more valuable connections than I've made in college - angel investors (trying to recruit me for their portfolio companies), startup founders, etc. I still see these people, though I do have to make an effort to keep the connections warm. Friendships are a different matter; see the beginning of my post.

Steve Jobs dropped out of college and audited those calligraphy classes for fun as a non-student. So that's kind of a bad example, since if you really wanted to follow in his footsteps, you should drop out and then audit classes at Stanford or something.

Let me give you my experience with "learning to learn:" Most students at top-tier colleges do not really care to "learn to learn." Students are more concerned with taking easy classes to fulfill their requirements than actually learning about subjects they have no interest in. If anything, it is people who are self-taught who have truly learned how to adapt. Who is going to have more developed autodidactic skills? A college grad or someone who had to teach themselves for 4 years?

>Connections are dramatically overrated. [...] From my year at a YC startup, I made more valuable (and warm) connections than I have ever made in college

Congrats on making it into YC. Yes, it's probably better than college for profitable connections. For most people, however, being admitted to college is a safer bet than YC.

I don't think Steve Jobs is a realistic model for the average person either. It was just a (side) example of how taking "fun" classes can sometimes turn out to be more profitable than an entirely mercenary course of study.

And I don't see which of my three arguments were against a straw man. Care to elaborate?

>Most students at top-tier colleges do not really care to "learn to learn."

I didn't say they cared to, but that they had to. When you work, the short-term pressure is to specialize - learn a subfield and learn it very well.

Just a side note. I worked at a YC startup, but did not found one.

> I would first of all argue that monetary value should not be the primary consideration of deciding to go to college.

Which I agreed with (I am in college right now, after all).

I agree. The social experience should be at the top of the list of reasons to go to college.

And while I am incredibly enthusiastic to see how online learning helps to curb the ever-growing debt crisis of the "traditional" university education, I do wonder how will this affect the social aspect of the college years? (Meaning the maturing, the friendships, and the non-classroom learning.)

Your argument is quite sensitive to the numbers, and your estimates of the numbers are questionable. Maybe someone from CMU CS is starting with $90k, but everyone I've talked to has offers significantly higher. Two of my closest friends have starting offers over $150k. Instead of spending their time sharpening how quickly they can map the shape of a button to the appropriate API call, they acquired deep knowledge of computing, and thus can do things in an hour most people couldn't in a month.

I've added numbers for average salary figures. I think that should be preferred to anecdotes. A rockstar in college who makes 150k (notwithstanding that the max salary for CMU SCS in 2012 was 135k) straight out of college is probably capable of making just as much if not more if had they dropped out of college.

It remains that in the average case dropping out makes more financial sense.

Just out of curiosity, and if you don't mind answering, are these offers $150k base? Or is that the value of the whole compensation package, including signing bonuses and stock options?

One offer is $150k salary, plus stock (somehow, the company still has its own stock, despite having already been acquired for $300 million). This person is finishing a 5th-year Master's though.

The other offer is $110k salary, plus $40k annually in stock. Since the company is Google, it's pretty fair to treat that as $150k.

90k is by no means optimistic; new grads at any of the BigCos start at 100k base not including bonuses, stock grants/RSUs, or relocation. If you're highly marketable due to internships, personal projects, etc. and have multiple offers, that can be easily bumped up by a significant margin. Additionally, if you're capable of making it into one of those top schools and then, again, into the CS department, you're more than likely eligible for numerous scholarships and other merit-based financial aid. To end up with 250k in tuition would require you to come from an extremely wealthy family who refuses to pay any of the cost of your education, and likely spending more than four years at university as well.

Internship pay (assuming one position as a rising Freshman, Sophomore, and Junior) will add up to 60-70k, and contracting could be another 5-10k for only a few hours of work every few months. The benefits are, as you yourself mentioned, being able to indulge your passions and dive into esoteric areas without the pressures of the real world. Had I dropped out of university I never would've been able to pursue my interest in quantitative literature, my ex-roommate would never have taken the dive into distributed systems, both decisions which have had a net return over not going, even accounting for lost salary.

See what I said:

> the anywhere between $0-250k tuition you're spending on college (financial aid depending)

Internship pay does assume you get positions all three years.

The BigCos are at the top of the margin and are not representative of the average case.

>There is no doubt in my mind that if you're the type of student who can get into MIT/Stanford/CMU/Berkeley/etc (at least Berkeley Engineering),

And if we're not? Do go to college then?

See what I said here: In fact, this probably applies to most colleges, not just top-tier ones, but in which case the salary numbers are more variable.

The problem is that your situation is a lot more variable. I know people who dropped out of community college and are make 100k+ in SV right now. I know people in better colleges studying CS who will probably never make that much. It's a lot more variable.

Well, crap sorry. That's what I get for not reading. I really didn't think that part was going to be revisited.

I suppose I get frustrated when it is assumed anyone can get into a top tier university. That never seemed like a remote possibility for me or any of my friends in high school and we were all within the top 5% of our school.