For a generation of young Nevadans, choosing where to go to college — or whether to go at all — has become a complex calculation of costs and benefits that often revolves around a single question: Is the degree worth its price?

With student loan debt skyrocketing and the job market tightening, colleges are scrambling to prove their value and borrowing an idea from the business world as they point to the “return on investment” from higher education credentials. 

A new analysis released Thursday by the Strada Education Foundation reports that 66 percent of Nevada’s recent public university graduates can expect a positive “return” within 10 years — meaning their earnings over a decade will exceed that of a typical high school graduate by an amount greater than the cost of earning their degree. 

Still, the rate of Nevada students expected to make back their investment on higher education is below the nationwide average of 70 percent.

For Nevada students, pursuing an associate’s degree may be a wiser financial decision than a bachelor’s. The Strada report found the state lagged behind the nationwide average of successful investments among students who pursued bachelor’s degrees (73 percent). 

But 68 percent of Nevada’s associate’s degree holders made more money than the average high school graduate, even when subtracting what they spent on higher education. That proportion is higher than the nationwide 60 percent rate.

In Nevada, enrollment is increasing — but so is tuition

A wide body of research indicates that a bachelor’s degree still pays off, at least on average and in the long run. Yet there’s growing recognition that not all degrees lead to a good salary, and even some that seem like a good bet are becoming riskier as graduates face one of the toughest job markets in years. 

Fueled by unemployment issues and ideological concerns from conservatives, public confidence in higher education has plummeted in recent years. 

In Nevada, though, data from the state’s higher education system shows that enrollment at four-year institutions is increasing while enrollment at two-year institutions is decreasing. In 2023, more than 100,000 students enrolled across the state’s eight public higher education institutions.

But increasing enrollment has come alongside increasing costs. While public tuition in Nevada is still lower than the national average, a 2.7 percent hike in tuition fees took effect statewide this fall as part of a 2023 agreement to boost faculty salaries. 

Federal data from 2022-2023 shows that the average student at UNLV paid a little more than $10,000 per year for college and graduated with nearly $20,000 in student debt. At UNR, the average student paid more than $15,000 per year to attend and graduated with nearly $19,000 in debt.

According to the Strada report, making higher education “worth it” in Nevada requires an annual income of more than $41,000 for associate’s degree holders and more than $46,000 for bachelor’s degree holders. 

The average student at UNLV and UNR will make $55,000 and $60,000, respectively, a decade after graduating.

Despite higher salaries later in life, high upfront costs are a critical issue for families who wonder how college tuition prices could ever pay off, said Emilia Mattucci, a Pennsylvania high school counselor. 

Some of Mattucci’s students have chosen to head to technical schools or the trades and pass on four-year universities, she told The Associated Press.

“A lot of families are just saying they can’t afford it, or they don’t want to go into debt for years and years and years,” Mattucci said.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon has been among those questioning the need for a four-year degree. Speaking at the Reagan Institute think tank in September, McMahon praised programs that prepare students for careers right out of high school.

“I’m not saying kids shouldn’t go to college,” McMahon said. “I’m just saying all kids don’t have to go in order to be successful.”

Amy Pason, a rhetoric professor at UNR, told The Indy in a statement that she has seen the costs of college weigh on some students who take additional jobs to pay for higher education or who enroll in career education courses along with their four-year bachelor’s program. 

Pason wrote that these students “are balancing paying jobs, career and technical education, and 4-year degree education. … It’s not all doom and gloom in terms of students not seeing the value of education — but there are some other challenges that might not have existed in past generations with students being able to focus solely on learning.”

Lowering college tuition and improving graduate earnings

American higher education has been grappling with both sides of the ROI equation — tuition costs and earnings for college graduates. This balancing act is becoming even more important as colleges compete for a diminishing pool of college-age students due to falling birth rates.

Bridging the gap to the job market has been a persistent struggle for U.S. colleges, said Matt Sigelman, president of a think tank that studies the workforce, in a conversation with The Associated Press. Last year his Burning Glass Institute partnered with Strada researchers and found that 52 percent of recent college graduates were in jobs that did not require a degree. 

Even higher-demand fields, such as education and nursing, had large numbers of graduates in that situation.

“No programs are immune, and no schools are immune,” Sigelman said. 

The federal government has been trying to fix the problem for years, dating to President Barack Obama’s first term. A federal rule established in 2011 aimed to cut federal money to college programs that leave graduates with low earnings, though it primarily targeted for-profit colleges.

A Republican reconciliation bill passed this year takes a wider view, requiring most colleges to hit earnings standards to be eligible for federal funding. The goal is to make sure college graduates end up earning more than those without a degree. 

Others see transparency as the solution.

For decades, students had little way to know whether graduates of specific degree programs were landing good jobs after college. That started to change with the College Scorecard in 2015, a federal website that shares broad earnings outcomes for college programs. More recently, bipartisan legislation in Congress has sought to give the public even more detailed data.

Some states have taken action to boost reporting on university graduates’ earnings. Colorado has started publishing yearly reports on the monetary payoff of college and Texas now factors it into calculations for how much taxpayer money goes to community colleges. The North Carolina Legislature ordered a 2023 study on the financial return for degrees across the state’s public universities, showing, for example, that undergraduate degrees in applied math and business tend to have high returns, while graduate degrees in psychology and foreign languages often don’t. 

Nevada’s Legislature and higher education system have not yet taken similar actions, but external research shows the state has room to grow on making education a worthy investment.

A 2023 study by the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity ranked Nevada’s public higher education system 42nd for return on investment, finding that the median student at the state’s public schools could expect lifetime benefits of nearly $57,000. 

While this is nearly triple the expected benefits in the worst-performing states such as New Mexico and Louisiana, it is a far cry from the $200,000-plus lifetime earnings that the average student in South Dakota, Minnesota and elsewhere could attribute to their higher education credentials. 

Some of Nevada’s individual schools have moved to be more transparent — and boastful — about their financial effectiveness. 

UNR runs a website outlining its “economic value” for “students, taxpayers, and society,” featuring data on the expected income for UNR graduates and the number of jobs supported by the university. Truckee Meadows Community College’s (TMCC) website features an array of reports on the school’s economic effectiveness. One of those reports states that for every dollar students spend on a TMCC education, they can anticipate $6.20 back in future earnings.

Greta de Jong, a history professor at UNR, told The Nevada Independent that she viewed anxieties over affordability as part of a broader shift in the meaning of higher education. College was previously seen “as a place to acquire new skills,” she said. “Now it’s seen as a way to get a job, to make money.”

Colleges are belatedly realizing how important data on financial outcomes is to students and their families, said Lee Roberts, chancellor of UNC-Chapel Hill, in an interview with The Associated Press.

“In uncertain times, students are even more focused — I would say rightly so — on what their job prospects are going to be,” he added. “So I think colleges and universities really owe students and their families this data.”