For years, families have been told that college is always the safer bet. HS4CC is all about the inevitability of going to college! The Class of 2026 now has a level of transparency not previously available to students choosing their college. We will now know in advance if a student graduating from that institution is likely to earn more money than a high school grad without a bachelor’s degree. List included.
The U.S. Department of Education has quietly made that information fully visible, and it’s not getting nearly the press it deserves. While the data can not predict any one person’s future, it does send a clear warning to families who are about to make one of the most expensive decisions of their lives. If you are planning for your teen to attend college, this information is essential before expectations are set and money is spent.
The U.S. Department of Education now fully discloses post-college earnings data through its College Scorecard. In some cases, that data shows a result many families were never warned about.
For certain institutions, the typical student earns less after attending than people with similar backgrounds who did not enroll in college at all.
This does not mean college is “bad” or that your student can’t beat the odds. This means you get access to more information ahead of time.
In other words, if you’re looking at a university that costs $100,000 and takes four years of your teen’s life, you want them to come out with their degree and have improved career prospects.
When a federal agency publishes data showing that attendance at a specific college may lower earning potential, that information belongs in the hands of parents and students before enrollment decisions are made.
Before we look at the list, let’s look at what a GREAT college degree can do for your student. Again, let’s use data, not our opinions about the football team, a favorite professor or the gourmet meal plan.
State: Pennsylvania
The average high school graduate is projected to earn $35,490 per year when they’ve been out of high school for four years. This is a median (middle) earning amount, so there are higher and lower wages, but this is the middle.
If the student graduates from the University of Pennsylvania, four years after graduation, they are projected to earn $119,406. Again, this can be higher or lower based on the many factors, but clearly a graduate from the University of Pennsylvania can feel VERY CONFIDENT that their degree will “pay off,” and the cost of earning the degree is justified.
As we continue to explore other Pennsylvania universities like Carnegie Mellon, we can see that those students have even greater earning potential. Again, the cost of the degree is justified by the data.
As we continue to explore Pennsylvania universities, we see that in Pennsylvania, the prospects are excellent and that we only run into trouble when we look at some of the trade schools and art institutes.
For example, dozens of beauty schools report that graduates will earn less than $25,000 per year while having paid over $30,000 to receive the training. This mismatch will be financially devastating for students if they have to borrow money and take loans to pay for their education.
I realize that the student considering the University of Pennsylvania is probably not wrestling with the decision to attend an Ivy League university or beauty school – I intentionally selected very different options to spark your curiosity and send you into the data for yourself.
As a Homeschooling for College Credit parent, I would always encourage you to start building an on-ramp for your teen to college during high school. You can help set the odds in their favor by resourcefully planning and accumulating college credit during high school. This reduces the time to completion, gets your student working in their career sooner, increases the liklihood that they’ll finish (and finish on time or early) and reduces the overall costs. If you use HS4CC strategies alongside the information in the data report, you can help the odds shift in your student’s favor.
See the entire Earnings Data Report published in December 2025
