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there’s a growing list of professions that will employ smart and resourceful people regardless of where or how they acquired their skills.

Unemployment for people with just a bachelors is like 11% less than people without one. Worth hundreds of thousands? Probably not. But going to a state school, which can be saved for tax-free, won't cost that.

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"Those with bachelor's degrees, no matter the field, earn vastly more than counterparts with some college ($1.55 million in lifetime earnings) or a high school diploma ($1.30 million lifetime), indicating that no matter the level of attainment or the field of study, simply earning a four-year degree is often integral to financial success later in life." http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2011/...

One would reasonably expect that the price of a university education and the opportunity cost of not having one will converge. If the discounted present marginal value of an education at X University is $Y, X University ought to charge at least $Y to attend. Different X may imply different Y, but the logic is the same. And since prospective students have effectively unlimited ability to borrow, there is no obvious reason this convergence should not take place. The only questions are whether it has done so already, and if so whether irrational bidders have also increased the price beyond that point.

But is it a causal relationship?

I'm having trouble finding it, but there was a recent study on people who were just above vs just below the hard SAT cutoff for their state school (presuming that these tiny differences - less than 20 SAT points - are fairly meaningless) and found that it does appear to be causal.

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