Is a degree in criminal justice a smart financial decision?

According to the US Census Bureau, if you are a high school graduate you are likely to earn an average of $1.2 million over your entire working life, if you hold an associate’s degree this figure will go up to $1.6 million, if you are a bachelor’s degree holder your likely life-long earnings will be on average $ 2.1 million while if you are a master’s degree holder or a PhD your life long earnings will be more than $ 3 million. In short, there is little doubt at all that the more qualified you are, the more you are likely to earn over your entire working life.

Compare this to the cost of earning a degree – associates, bachelor’s or master’s. Even if you go to some of the high-cost for-profit private colleges to earn an online degree, you are unlikely to spend more than $ 30,000 to get your degree. To get an associate degree you will be spending a lot less, say around $ 10,000-15,000. For a bachelor’s you are likely to spend at most $ 20,000-25,000 while for a master’s you will again have to spend another $ 15,000 or so. Hence, to go up to earning a master’s you are unlikely to spend more than $ 35,000-40,000 at the most.

Leaving aside other considerations and to simply illustrate the point through some simplifications, we can say that the average return on investment on spending for an associate’s degree is roughly 1.6 million/15000 X 100