In an off-handed comment to a fellow student, my Marketing professor asked how much we were paying for the class, per hour. He estimated it at $45 per hour, and I, with a thirst for numbers that rivals the thirst of Tantalus, decided to actually do the math.
Congratulations to the two of you who are still reading after that intro, and have not yet been scared away by my obsession with math.
I did a rough calculation in class, based on the number of credit hours I was taking. But when I got home later, I started thinking about the other factors involved. Don’t I pay to take the final exam? Aren’t I really paying for the privilege to do homework and study?
The final question comes down to: How much do I pay, per hour, for school, and am I getting good enough grades to justify that price?
So I made a spreadsheet. In fact, I made it and posted it on this site, so if you want to download it, you can. You can download it just to see my calculations, or you can download it to calculate the rate you’re paying for your schooling!
The Hourly Cost of College – click to download!
Observations from my Own Data
As you can see if you grab the spreadsheet, I’m paying $52.51 per hour for my college education. This is based on doing only 5 hours a week of homework outside of class – which is pretty accurate for my current habits, and also a little sad.
The good news is that I can lower that hourly rate by putting in more hours of work. $52.51 sounds pretty high for my current B average – but if I put in more hours, I can pay less per hour for a B+!
Most professors have told me that each class is probably going to require twice the number of hours outside of class as homework and studying. For example, my 4-hour-a-week class should require 8 hours a week of studying and homework. That sounds a little crazy for my liberal arts classes, but it certainly was true of my film classes – plus some! So I guess it evens out.
So if I change the number of homework hours in the spreadsheet from 5 to the recommended number, 20, my rate drops to…. $25.93.
Obviously, this sort of number is extremely arbitrary. The total amount I pay for tuition has nothing to do with how many hours of work I put in. But the purpose of these numbers is really to re-frame my education in terms of finances – to trick myself into procrastinating less by telling myself I’m saving money by studying more.
Observations from a Friend
Everyone is going to use this spreadsheet a bit differently. When I made the “other” category, I was thinking of hours spent doing homework and studying outside of class. But when I sent the spreadsheet to a friend, he included all of the clubs and activities that he wouldn’t be doing if he weren’t in school.
This is an entirely valid way to look at it – not only is he paying to be educated, but he’s paying for all of the campus activities he engages in.
His rate, since he’s much more studious and active than I am, came to a sweet $23.44 an hour.
After calculating that, he did something else I didn’t do: he factored in his scholarships. I decided not to bother, because I knew if I started down that road, I’d start trying to factor in my loans and the interest I’d pay on them – and then there’d be too much math – even for me!
After factoring in his scholarship, his rate dropped down to $14.12 an hour. Lesson learned? Scholarships matter.
Your Turn
I would love to see what some other people get. I’m not very studious, and I go to a rather expensive school, some I’m interested in the rates others are paying. If you are comfortable sharing your rates in the comments or by email, I’d love it!
This figure is drastically distorted.
The real cost of college is not just the tuition, but what you are missing out on by being in college.
Let’s say you took a job at a dept store making 7.50 per hour instead of going to college. You’re also missing out on 300 dollars per week (minus taxes) by being full-time in school. Not to mention, the potential raises (you may be an assistant manager making 40k per year or so by the time you have worked there for 4 years.
Ah, the good old opportunity cost. You’d want to calculate that for all the hours of studying too, right?
Jeff,
The number you’re after would be extremely difficult to pinpoint. After all, you’d have to know exactly what job you’d be working if you weren’t in college, and at what pay. You’d then also have to figure in the increase in pay you might get from jobs after college, for having the degree.
You could certainly put together a spreadsheet with estimates, though.
I remember all my lecturers saying that you needed to spend twice as much time on out of class work as that spend at the lectures themselves. I think I only averaged that amount in my last year if you include revision for finals and the fact that I was doing a large project.
I definitely think it’s a trick to tell yourself (an interesting one, but a trick), that you are paying less in tuition per hour if you work more hours. Maybe think about it this way: if you work less but more quality hours, then you would have spare time to do the priceless things in life that can’t be calculated…like bong beers with friends, or tip cows (if you’re in a location conducive with such activities). and who knows…you could even get a job (which isnt priceless but could fill in the extra hours) to make money that would defray the cost of schooling. 🙂 i like this blog!!
I don’t really see the point in such a calculation. And it isn’t that I don’t care about the cost of college. As was somewhat discussed in the comments, I would be more interested in looking at the net effects of attending college (as compared to not), particularly financial, but you could also broaden that to include many other categories.
In terms of a non-financial evaluation, it would be highly dependent on what something is worth to a person. Also, you would have to consider many different reasons. In particular, I am going to college because I love to learn, want to have higher learning such that I can get a job in a particular field (or eventually be a professor), enjoy the college social life – which is different than that of someone who starts working right away, want to be away from my parents (if I started working right away, getting my own place would seriously detract from any earnings – although it still would be a possibility), and want to be exposed to ideas and people that I probably would not meet elsewhere.
Now what would be interesting is if I tried to put a dollar amount on each of those things – and with the way tuition prices are going, I think more and more students will have to decide that (or at least decide to attend community college or a public university as opposed to private). I think it is in a way, similar to how Americans feel about gas. Prices went up, but consumption was unaffected. Particularly, big name private universities can charge whatever they want, and at this point, the majority of Americans feel it is worth it.
I am very happy to have gone to very good, yet inexpensive school, University of Maryland ($3,984.25 tuition per semester for in-state).
According to your spreadsheet, I’m paying $4.27 each hour for college.
However, with my financial aid factored in, I’m being PAID $14.95 an hour.
Ah, scholarships…
College is really expensive. You should also think about other expenses other than tuition fees.
@Northern Cyprus:
It’s true that the other costs of college add up. I can be the first to tell you that – it wasn’t tuition or even housing and fees that got me, it was paying for textbooks and funding my required film school projects that sent me over the edge and caused me to drop out of school (for a time).
But as others in the comments have pointed out, this calculation doesn’t really mean anything – it’s a quick number that’s mostly just fun to play with. Also, if you wanted to include things like housing, books, fees, transportation, you easily could, by adding it all up and putting it into the spreadsheet in the “tuition” box.
This is really interesting. I did this one time in the past, and it was about $50/hour. According to your worksheet, it is $38.47 for me. I did not include any time doing homework outside of class though, because that is not what I am paying for. Most homework assignments are things I am teaching myself, or reading books I could read if I weren’t paying the school. Group projects… well maybe they should be counted because that interaction I could not get on my own.
As for your film school expenses, I feel your pain. I was a photography major and it wasn’t books I was paying for, but film, developing, printing, mounting, ink, backgrounds, props, etc. I tried to be as financially conscious as I could be (as I needed to be) and found it often hurt my images and/or creativity. I still make do with what I have, but I sometimes find myself wondering what would be different about my style if money weren’t an obstacle.
I agree – – I don’t think you should add in the hours spent outside of class. Because you’re not paying for that, are you? You’re paying for class time and the degree at the end (hopefully), those will cost the same whether you study a little or a lot.