Study lists careers with best return on investment

And so it begins.

For the 149th consecutive year, classes begin this week at Third District Normal School, now known as Southeast Missouri State University.

Students from across the country and several nations around the world have come to Cape Girardeau in search of knowledge, just as I did 48 years ago.

I was a 17-year-old wide-eyed freshman back in August of 1973. For the first time in my life, I was living "on my own." My address that first year was Room 703 of Towers South. (Funny how I can remember my room number, but not my roommate's name, although I do recall we both marched in Leroy Mason's Golden Eagles band; he was a saxophonist while I played trombone.)

Looking back on my college years, I honestly say I was not focused on a career after graduation. As a sophomore, I joined a fraternity and became involved in some campus organizations, one of which was The Capaha Arrow (as the student newspaper was known then), where I discovered a modest writing ability and served as editor-in-chief my senior year.

I think my objective at the time was simply to earn a degree, any degree, and see where it might take me. Geographically speaking, it initially took me about six blocks down Broadway to the Southeast Missourian, where, in 1978, I began working in sports and circulation before becoming a "beat" reporter, covering crime and City Hall. My career also led me across the street to KFVS and across town to Saint Francis Medical Center before I made my way "east" again with stops at Southeast Hospital and the SEMO Alumni Relations office before ultimately returning to where my career began, here at the Missourian.

For me, college was more of an "experience" and not an "investment." After all, tuition back then was only a few hundred dollars a semester. I graduated from Southeast with zero student debt (although it did take 10 years to pay off my graduate school loan).

For students today, though, it's a different story. According to the website www.educationdata.org, the average cost of a college education in the United States is now $35,720 per student per year. The cost has tripled since 2000 and has an annual growth rate of about 6.8%.

Of course, that cost can vary if you're talking about public universities versus private schools, but considering room and board, student loan interest rates, loss of income during a four-year (or longer) college career, and other factors, the ultimate price of the average bachelor's degree can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Which brings me to return on investment, or ROI. Last week, I came across a new study examining the college programs giving students the best "bang for their buck."

The study, published earlier this month by a not-for-profit think tank called Third Way, calculated the time it takes students to recoup their postsecondary education costs based on earnings typical graduates make in various careers. Program-level data from the U.S. Department of Education allowed Third Way to determine the ROI typical students received from specific college programs from which they graduated.

The resulting data "gives those considering a postsecondary credential — as well as policymakers, researchers, and taxpayers — more actionable data about where students should be investing their time and money if they hope to increase their economic mobility," according to Third Way.

According to Third Way, the fields of study giving bachelor's degree graduates the best opportunity to recoup their educational investment in five years or less are in the areas related to nursing, engineering, construction management, quality control/safety technologies and dental services.

On the other end of the spectrum, Third Way's study ranked the following educational programs as having the lowest ROI — music; fine and studio arts; anthropology; ecology, evolution, systematics, and population biology; religious studies; film/video and photographic arts; visual and performing arts; zoology/animal biology; dance; and drama/theater arts and stagecraft.

(Apparently my fields of study — marketing and communications — fell somewhere between the high and low ROI lists.)

According to Third Way, college programs at public institutions, such as Southeast, offer the highest likelihood graduates will be able to recoup their educational investment within five to 10 years after graduation.

The complete study may be found on Third Way's website, www.thirdway.org.

Rural King update

As I reported back in April, farm and home general merchandise retailer Rural King has plans to open a Cape Girardeau location in the building on the corner of William Street and Silver Springs Road, originally occupied by Walmart and more recently by Toys R Us, Big Lots and Hancock Fabrics.

In the months since, there has been sporadic activity at the site with work crews doing some interior renovations. However, a spokesperson at Rural King's headquarters in Mattoon, Illinois, told me last week there is still no timeline for when the store here will open.

Tooth Fairy Day

Unless you're obsessed with dentistry or you simply keep track of quirky holidays, you probably didn't realize Sunday was National Tooth Fairy Day, a day named in honor of the mythical sprite who collects baby teeth from beneath children's pillows in exchange for cash.

Even as a child, I never thought this made a lot of sense. I mean, what was the Tooth Fairy doing with all the teeth she collected every night? Where did she get the money to leave under all those pillows? And just how did she know when a child lost a tooth anyway?

My oldest daughter, Katie, believed in the Tooth Fairy until she was about 6 years old. Back then, she had surgery requiring removal of a loose baby tooth before undergoing general anesthesia. The first thing she told us in the recovery room afterward was she no longer believed in the Tooth Fairy because the last thing she saw before surgery was a nurse put a dollar under her pillow as payment for the tooth that was removed. (Perhaps that was a foreshadowing of what was to come because Katie is now a dentist.)

When I was a child, I think the standard "exchange" price the Tooth Fairy paid for a tooth was around 25 cents. By the time my kids were losing their teeth, the going rate was somewhere around a dollar. Today, the Tooth Fairy's average payout is $4.70 for every lost tooth, according to a sampling of more than 1,000 Tooth Fairy "surrogates" (aka parents) who participated in Delta Dental's Original Tooth Fairy Poll conducted in late December and early January. When the company began its annual check of Tooth Fairy payouts in 1998, the average value of a lost tooth was $1.30.

The border collie in Jay and Kathy Wolz's kitchen has to find someplace else to sleep now that a long-awaited refrigerator has displaced his bed.JAY WOLZ

One final note ...

Regular readers of my business column know that for some time now I've been including weekly updates on the refrigerator my wife and I ordered in early October when we embarked on a home remodeling project.

In large part because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused worldwide manufacturing delays and supply-chain disruptions, Whirlpool temporarily stopped making the specific KitchenAid model we ordered. As of last week, it had been on back-order for nearly 11 months.

Rather than wait any longer for a refrigerator that might never materialize, we chose last week to purchase a similar model, which was in stock at a local home improvement store. It was delivered three days later and now fills the space once occupied by our dog's bed.

It's OK; he'd rather sleep in the garage anyway.

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