HEAD-TO-HEAD
Two schools, one number.
The question families actually ask isn’t “is college worth it” — it’s “this school or that one.” Each pair below is run through the same model as the calculator, at the price a student actually pays, so the comparison is apples-to-apples. Both schools always pay off — the number is the margin.
IPEDS 2023 tuition · FREOPP 2021 earnings · BEA 2023 cost-of-living · both schools NPV-positive · same model as /worth-it.
Same-state public flagships
At resident pricing — a home-state student’s real choice.
- University of Michigan vs Michigan State University+$2.84M top
- University of Texas at Austin vs Texas A & M University+$2.54M top
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill vs North Carolina State University+$2.22M top
- University of Virginia vs Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University+$2.63M top
- University of Florida vs Florida State University+$1.75M top
- University of Georgia vs Georgia Institute of Technology+$5.16M top
- Indiana University vs Purdue University+$3.05M top
- University of Alabama vs Auburn University+$2.20M top
- Pennsylvania State University vs University of Pittsburgh+$2.20M top
- University of California-Berkeley vs University of California-Los Angeles+$2.50M top
- Ohio State University vs University of Cincinnati+$1.97M top
- University of Arizona vs Arizona State University Campus Immersion+$1.55M top
- University of Oregon vs Oregon State University+$1.20M top
- University of Washington vs Washington State University+$1.82M top
Cross-admit private peers
Same tuition for everyone — a clean head-to-head.