The value of college may depend as much on who you meet as on what you learn.
Tuition, fees, housing, food and other expenses for four years at many colleges and universities now approach $400,000. Should you and your family assume that amount of debt to buy an education, a credential and four years as a member of a college community?
The Education
A college education once provided access to knowledge that was difficult or impossible to obtain anywhere else. That monopoly on knowledge no longer exists. Although laboratories, clinical education, seminars, faculty supervision and interaction with other students continue to have educational value, should you borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars for access to them?
The Credential
Credentials have different values in different occupations. Some employers use them. Graduate and professional schools consider them. Certain occupations require them. A diploma can also matter when someone is beginning a career and has little professional history by which to be judged.
If you intend to become a teacher, engineer, accountant, physician, lawyer, scientist or business executive, ask whether attending an expensive institution will materially improve your opportunities compared with attending a substantially less expensive one. Do not ask whether the expensive school is more prestigious because it probably is. Ask whether its graduates have opportunities materially different from those available to graduates of less expensive colleges. If the costs differ, conduct a comprehensive cost/benefit/value analysis.
The College Community
The important question is not merely where you spend those four years in college. It is with whom you spend them. You are buying four years in an academic community, and that may have substantial economic value if it has unusual concentrations of students whose families are active participants in the economy: business owners, corporate executives, investment bankers, investors, venture capitalists, private-equity professionals, entrepreneurs, developers, major law-firm partners and other professionals who hire people, allocate capital, finance businesses, retain professionals and make consequential commercial decisions. If you go to a school where their children become your classmates, that may have economic value independent of anything taught in the classroom.
Peers
You meet your roommate at 18. You eat with classmates. You study together. You participate in organizations. You play sports. You argue. You date. You make friends.
At 19, your roommate may have no economic power whatsoever, but their mother may run a company or their father may be an investment banker. Those parental relationships may create opportunities while you are young, but at 30 your classmate may be building a business. At 40, another may become a partner in an investment firm. At 50, another may run a corporation, manage capital, own a business or be a senior lawyer, physician or executive. The economic capacity of your college peer group can increase as its members grow older. The people with whom you ate breakfast when you were 19 may become the people making consequential economic decisions when you are 45. Your relationships with them can matter.
The economic value of an influential peer community is access. A friend can tell you about an opportunity before you might otherwise learn about it. A classmate can make an introduction. A roommate can make sure someone reads your résumé. A friend’s parent can introduce you to someone in an industry you otherwise could not reach. Twenty years later, the classmate may be the person making the decision. Even if you are qualified, first you have to get through the door.
The Colleges Where Community May Have Economic Value
There is a small group of institutions where attending the college and meaningfully participating in its undergraduate community may have intrinsic economic value. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Penn, Duke and Dartmouth stand out. MIT, the University of Chicago, Cornell and Georgetown must also be considered.
This is not a ranking of the “best” colleges in America, and not every student attending one of them will become wealthy, powerful or professionally successful. These institutions combine economically and professionally connected families, valuable peer communities and access to parents and alumni with pipelines into consequential occupations. Their graduates also repeatedly emerge in positions of influence in business, finance, technology, entrepreneurship, law and corporate leadership.
Highly selective institutions admit exceptionally able and often economically advantaged students to a peer population from which an unusual number of economically consequential adults subsequently emerge. A substantial number of those undergraduates come from professional and executive families and comparatively few from traditional working-class households.
The community of roommates, classmates, teammates and friends is the economic asset a prospective student must consider. For a talented student whose parents cannot telephone an investment banker, corporate executive, venture capitalist, major lawyer or business owner, that opportunity may have substantial economic value. Admission can place that student inside a society where the parents of their classmates are corporate executives, entrepreneurs, investment bankers, venture capitalists, private-equity partners, developers, substantial business owners or major law-firm partners. They hire, invest, lend, retain professionals, introduce people, allocate capital and make decisions.
At 19, classmates are simply other students. Twenty or thirty years later some of them will be running businesses, investing capital, hiring professionals, founding companies and making decisions. A genuine college friendship can therefore become more economically consequential with time. That is the potential value of a lifetime peer community. For a family considering $400,000 of debt, that asset must be an element of the cost/benefit/value analysis. The economic value of attending one of these institutions depends on meaningful participation in undergraduate life.
The $400,000 Question
Borrowed money has a cost. Interest compounds the cost of the education. Repayment consumes future income. Large monthly payments can affect where you live, what employment you can accept, whether you can buy a home, whether you can start a business, whether you can raise a family and how much risk you can afford to take early in your career. The debt itself can reduce some of the opportunities the expensive education was supposed to create.
Before borrowing anything approaching $400,000, ask these questions.
What education will I be receiving that I cannot obtain somewhere else at less cost?
What additional economic value will this particular degree or credential have in the career I intend to pursue?
What is the economic value of becoming an active member of this particular undergraduate community?
Membership in an undergraduate community whose members may create significant economic opportunities throughout your lifetime can have substantial value. Decide whether that value, together with the education and credential, justifies the debt. If it does not, do not borrow the $400,000.
The $400,000 College Decision
September 9, 2026 | Curbstone Opinions
The value of college may depend as much on who you meet as on what you learn.
Tuition, fees, housing, food and other expenses for four years at many colleges and universities now approach $400,000. Should you and your family assume that amount of debt to buy an education, a credential and four years as a member of a college community?
The Education
A college education once provided access to knowledge that was difficult or impossible to obtain anywhere else. That monopoly on knowledge no longer exists. Although laboratories, clinical education, seminars, faculty supervision and interaction with other students continue to have educational value, should you borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars for access to them?
The Credential
Credentials have different values in different occupations. Some employers use them. Graduate and professional schools consider them. Certain occupations require them. A diploma can also matter when someone is beginning a career and has little professional history by which to be judged.
If you intend to become a teacher, engineer, accountant, physician, lawyer, scientist or business executive, ask whether attending an expensive institution will materially improve your opportunities compared with attending a substantially less expensive one. Do not ask whether the expensive school is more prestigious because it probably is. Ask whether its graduates have opportunities materially different from those available to graduates of less expensive colleges. If the costs differ, conduct a comprehensive cost/benefit/value analysis.
The College Community
The important question is not merely where you spend those four years in college. It is with whom you spend them. You are buying four years in an academic community, and that may have substantial economic value if it has unusual concentrations of students whose families are active participants in the economy: business owners, corporate executives, investment bankers, investors, venture capitalists, private-equity professionals, entrepreneurs, developers, major law-firm partners and other professionals who hire people, allocate capital, finance businesses, retain professionals and make consequential commercial decisions. If you go to a school where their children become your classmates, that may have economic value independent of anything taught in the classroom.
Peers
You meet your roommate at 18. You eat with classmates. You study together. You participate in organizations. You play sports. You argue. You date. You make friends.
At 19, your roommate may have no economic power whatsoever, but their mother may run a company or their father may be an investment banker. Those parental relationships may create opportunities while you are young, but at 30 your classmate may be building a business. At 40, another may become a partner in an investment firm. At 50, another may run a corporation, manage capital, own a business or be a senior lawyer, physician or executive. The economic capacity of your college peer group can increase as its members grow older. The people with whom you ate breakfast when you were 19 may become the people making consequential economic decisions when you are 45. Your relationships with them can matter.
The economic value of an influential peer community is access. A friend can tell you about an opportunity before you might otherwise learn about it. A classmate can make an introduction. A roommate can make sure someone reads your résumé. A friend’s parent can introduce you to someone in an industry you otherwise could not reach. Twenty years later, the classmate may be the person making the decision. Even if you are qualified, first you have to get through the door.
The Colleges Where Community May Have Economic Value
There is a small group of institutions where attending the college and meaningfully participating in its undergraduate community may have intrinsic economic value. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Penn, Duke and Dartmouth stand out. MIT, the University of Chicago, Cornell and Georgetown must also be considered.
This is not a ranking of the “best” colleges in America, and not every student attending one of them will become wealthy, powerful or professionally successful. These institutions combine economically and professionally connected families, valuable peer communities and access to parents and alumni with pipelines into consequential occupations. Their graduates also repeatedly emerge in positions of influence in business, finance, technology, entrepreneurship, law and corporate leadership.
Highly selective institutions admit exceptionally able and often economically advantaged students to a peer population from which an unusual number of economically consequential adults subsequently emerge. A substantial number of those undergraduates come from professional and executive families and comparatively few from traditional working-class households.
The community of roommates, classmates, teammates and friends is the economic asset a prospective student must consider. For a talented student whose parents cannot telephone an investment banker, corporate executive, venture capitalist, major lawyer or business owner, that opportunity may have substantial economic value. Admission can place that student inside a society where the parents of their classmates are corporate executives, entrepreneurs, investment bankers, venture capitalists, private-equity partners, developers, substantial business owners or major law-firm partners. They hire, invest, lend, retain professionals, introduce people, allocate capital and make decisions.
At 19, classmates are simply other students. Twenty or thirty years later some of them will be running businesses, investing capital, hiring professionals, founding companies and making decisions. A genuine college friendship can therefore become more economically consequential with time. That is the potential value of a lifetime peer community. For a family considering $400,000 of debt, that asset must be an element of the cost/benefit/value analysis. The economic value of attending one of these institutions depends on meaningful participation in undergraduate life.
The $400,000 Question
Borrowed money has a cost. Interest compounds the cost of the education. Repayment consumes future income. Large monthly payments can affect where you live, what employment you can accept, whether you can buy a home, whether you can start a business, whether you can raise a family and how much risk you can afford to take early in your career. The debt itself can reduce some of the opportunities the expensive education was supposed to create.
Before borrowing anything approaching $400,000, ask these questions.
What education will I be receiving that I cannot obtain somewhere else at less cost?
What additional economic value will this particular degree or credential have in the career I intend to pursue?
What is the economic value of becoming an active member of this particular undergraduate community?
Membership in an undergraduate community whose members may create significant economic opportunities throughout your lifetime can have substantial value. Decide whether that value, together with the education and credential, justifies the debt. If it does not, do not borrow the $400,000.