35 Chapter 3: Investment analysis To enroll in postsecondary education, students pay for tuition and forego monies that otherwise they would have earned had they chosen to work instead of attend college. From the perspective of students, education is the same as an investment; i.e., they incur a cost, or put up a certain amount of money, with the expectation of receiving benefits in return. The total costs consist of the tuition and fees that students pay and the opportunity cost of foregone time and money. The benefits are the higher earnings that students receive as a result of their education. Calculating student costs Student costs consist of three main items: direct outlays, opportunity costs, and future principal and interest costs incurred from student loans. Direct outlays include tuition and fees, equal to $27 million from Figure 1.1. Direct outlays also include the cost of books and supplies. On average, full-time students spent $2,400 each on books and supplies during the reporting year.17 Multiplying this figure by the number of full-time equivalents (FTEs) produced by SUNY WCC in FY 2021-2218 generates a total cost of $8.6 million for books and supplies. In order to pay the cost of tuition, many students had to take out loans. These students not only incur the cost of tuition from the college but also incur the interest cost of taking out loans. In FY 2021-22, students received a total of $2.1 million in federal loans to attend SUNY WCC.19 Students pay back these loans along with interest over the span of several years in the future. Since students pay off these loans over time, they accrue no initial cost during the analysis year. Hence, to avoid double counting, the $2.1 million in federal loans is subtracted from the costs incurred by students in FY 2021-22. In addition to the cost of tuition, books, and supplies, students also experienced an opportunity cost of attending college during the analysis year. Opportunity cost is the most difficult component of student costs to estimate. It measures the value of time and earnings foregone by students who go to college rather than work. To calculate 17 Based on the data provided by SUNY WCC. 18 A single FTE is equal to 30 CHEs, so there were 3,373 FTEs produced by students in FY 2021-22, equal to 101,177 CHEs divided by 30 (excluding personal enrichment students). 19 Due to data limitations, only federal loans are considered in this analysis. Student perspective Student costs Student benefits Out-of-pocket expenses Opportunity costs Higher earnings from education
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM2NjgzMA==