It's no secret that the cost of attending college is getting more expensive. The nation's top 50 private universities raised tuition by an average of 3.6% for the 2017-18 school year according to a USA Today analysis. Meanwhile, inflation hovers around 2.2% for the last 12 months. That's not a great trend for families already stretching their budget to pay for a college education.

So in a climate of rising tuition costs, is college really worth it? Some, like PayPal co-founder and prominent tech investor Peter Thiel, would have you believe that it's not. His Thiel Fellowship offers students $100,000 over two years to forgo college and start a company instead. Former Harvard president Larry Summers, meanwhile, has called the Thiel Fellowship the “single most misdirected bit of philanthropy in this decade” and maintains the importance of the college experience.

We've used data from PayScale's 2017-2018 College Salary Report and its 2017 College ROI Report to assess the economic value of a college education today. PayScale's reports reflect the responses of 2.3 million college graduates from over 1,500 schools who have taken their online salary survey.