In a time of increased financial uncertainty, perhaps it is wise to reconsider the economic wisdom of spending tens of thousands of dollars per year to pursue a college education.  Doing so often leads prospective college students to an unsettling conclusion; College can be the best investment you'll ever make, but only if you use college to prepare yourself for future success.  Otherwise

Investing in College: A guide for the perplexed by Malcolm Getz is a book that I would advise all prospective college students and their parents to read.  Dr. Getz, a professor of economics at Vanderbilt University, does the economic analysis to show expected returns on various levels of education and various majors and degree programs.  He then goes a step further, and clearly explains why all of this analysis needs to be tempered by knowing each student's individual talents, interests and level of commitment.  As a result, this book doesn't provide a simple economic formula for how to get the most value from college, but will provide a reality check on which degree programs give you the best odds of getting more than your money's worth in terms of higher future earnings.

Still, there are two clear take-away messages from Dr. Getz book that I'd like you to consider. First, similar to the message in Winning the College Game, Investing in College makes the case that you need to understand yourself and what you want out of your post college life in order to make the best choice about whether and where to attend college and what to study while you are there.  Second, both books point out that the worst college investment is to start a degree program, incure the expenses associated with attending college, and then to drop out without earning the degree. To reduce the risk of ending up as a college dropout, invest the time up front really understanding what you want out of college before you decide to attend.  Then once you make the decision to attend college, throw yourself into getting the most value out of that experience by actively seeking ways to connect what you are learning during college with what you hope to be doing after you graduate.