A college degree can mean that you have a chance to make more money. However, according to a recent Georgetown University Centre on Education and Workforce report getting a liberal arts degree promises higher returns on investment. The report indicates that liberal arts colleges that have higher returns on investments show that students who will get their degrees from the colleges are likely to realize high ROIs.

Liberal arts have ROI of around $918,000 over 40 years

According to researchers, the profit that one makes after paying college tuition or loans and other expenses. Based on that, they found that a college degree is profitable, and they refer to that as ROI. Surprisingly the report indicates that liberal arts colleges are among the best. For instance, with a liberal arts degree after around 40 years, the ROI will increase to around $918,000, which is around 200,000 more than the median returns for other degrees.  

According to Georgetown University, an average college enrolee will likely see around three-quarters of million in ROI over 40 years. At most of the 47 selective liberal art colleges in the country, the study established that the 40 year ROI is over $1.1 million.

Liberal arts have higher returns relative to engineering

Typically a liberal arts college will pay better than all the other types of colleges. Shockingly the report indicates that ROI for liberal arts is slightly more than the median ROI for business and engineering schools.

However, the ROI on liberal arts figure is conservative since it has been calculated per enrolee and not graduates. According to authors of the report, Ban Cheah and martin Van Der Werf nongraduates are unlikely to realize steep returns, and therefore returns for graduating from a liberal arts college can be higher than the $918,000 figure quoted.

However, there is criticism regarding the data the research used. For instance, GU calculated earning over ten years with the assumption that there is no growth in earnings after ten years. Normally wage tends to grow with time as employees receive promotions.