I hear your point. To avoid getting into trouble I'll keep the framing as better than a full tuition scholarship (rather than full ride). It's already a good deal so no need to take risks with marketing :)
If you're curious, here's the math I'm using (assuming that our average salary will stay around $95k and long term salary trajectory will map to traditional stats). Since our tuition is a percent of earnings, the math is relatively straightforward:
Make School:
- Tuition = 20% of 5 years salary = ~1.1x starting salary = $1.1S (assumes 5% annual salary increase)
- Living expenses = 4 * annual cost of living = $4L
- Earnings = $1.03S * 0.65 * 2 (assumes 35% tax rate, 5% annual salary increase)
- Net worth after 4 years = $0.24S - $4L
Full Tuition Scholarship:
- Tuition = $0
- Living expenses = $4L
- Earnings = $0
- Net worth after 4 years = -$4L
Full Ride Scholarship:
- Tuition = $0
- Living expenses = $0
- Earnings = $0
- Net worth after 4 years = $0
To plug in some numbers, our students' cost of living tends to be ~$1500/mo, while our average starting salary is approximately $95k.
- Make School case net worth after 4 years: -$49k
- Full tuition case net worth: $-72k
- Full ride case net worth: $0
However, this doesn't factor in compounding gains of starting off at a higher salary (http://eagle.gmu.edu/newsroom/843/). The top CS programs in the country (Stanford, MIT) are currently at ~$95k average starting salary, while the overall average is ~$60k. At the point their peers are graduating college, our alums will have a $10k+ higher salary. This difference should compensate for the -$49k difference over a long career.
Since tuition and tax rates are both proportional to income, the numbers won't change substantially if salary is lower.
